Shoplifting suspect wounded (Off-duty deputy shoots man outside Kroger)

The Courier Journal ^ | Sept 10, 01 | Grace Schneider and Tonia Holbrook

[SLB]

An off-duty Jefferson County sheriff's deputy shot and wounded a shoplifting suspect who was attempting to flee in a car at a busy western Louisville grocery store yesterday afternoon, a spokesman for the sheriff's department said.

Louisville police and the sheriff's department have launched separate investigations of the shooting at the Kroger store at 27th Street and Broadway.

Spokesmen for both departments declined to provide much detail or to identify the deputy and the shooting victim, citing the investigations.

Lt. Col. Carl Yates, a sheriff's department spokesman, said the shoplifting suspect was in police custody last night and was being treated at University of Louisville Hospital for a gunshot wound. He said the man had taken himself to the hospital in a car.

However, Detective Bill Keeling, a city police spokesman, said he could not confirm that anyone had been arrested and that police would not release any information until today.

Yates said the sheriff's deputy, who was working off duty as a security guard, encountered a shoplifter and shot at the man about 4 p.m. in the store parking lot. The man was attempting to run and jump into a waiting car, Yates said.

Yates said he didn't know whether the shoplifting suspect had been armed.

The deputy has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigations, Yates said.

For more than three hours after the shooting, police closed off a 70-by-30-foot section of parking lot in front of the store while dozens of officers examined the scene.

The lot was jammed with families coming to do their week's shopping, and several stopped and asked officers what had happened.

Scott Harris, who was sitting on a bench outside the store talking with friends when the shots were fired, said he couldn't say exactly what happened.

He said he heard three or four shots. ''All I heard was boom, boom, boom. And I looked up and a guy was running and jumping into a car,'' Harris said.

Harris was more concerned with his white 1991 Oldsmobile Cutlass sedan, which was parked 30 feet or so from where the deputy fired the shots -- inside the crime-scene area.

Police didn't allow him to move the car for four hours while they examined the area.

Finally, when officers began to roll up the yellow police tape, Harris retrieved the car. He said he was relieved to see that no bullets had hit the vehicle.

[SLB]

FYI

[DainBramage]

Probably took all the sprinkled ones.

[SLB]

Probably took all the sprinkled ones.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!

[SLB]

I wonder what the judge would say if I would do the same. I have a Kentucky Concealed Deadly Weapons License in my pocket. Wonder if that would protect me? Ha! I would be wearing an orange jumpsuit this morning and be a "star" on the closed circuit TV system from the jail to the court house.

[pocat]

Well, at least the cop didn't have an M-60...

[SLB]

Just how much of this will be swept under the carpet? Remember the police sergeant that killed the suspected drug dealer in E'town a couple of months ago? He is back on duty now, less the thumb he shot off.

[Chapita]

The guy needs to be fired!

[FreedomPoster]

No mention of the race of the deputy or the perp. If the deputy is white, and the perp black, there's a Sharpeton-wannabe reverend up there whom we will be hearing from shortly.

If the sang-froid of the bystander quoted is typical for local residents, they must be quite accustomed to gunplay in the neighborhood.

[Fred Mertz]

I didn't realize shoplifting is a use of deadly force crime.

[pubmom]

If things are as the article states, I agree!

[Chapita]

Use of deadly force is supposed to be only to protect yourself or another from great bodily harm or death!

[Space Wrangler]

Agreed. This was a bad shoot. The cop had no right whatsoever to fire. If this were, say a private grocery store owner, who ran out after the guy, had a CCW permit, and shot the dude, Mr. Private Grocery store owner would be in the slammer right now. Deadly force was NOT justified in this case, so we'll see how it shakes out.

[Lazamataz]

Every time the sheriff lovers on FR start squawking, I remember the tale.

I like sheriffs a lot more then the FedGoons, particularly the Bungling Atrocious Terroristic Funlovers, aka the BATF.

[SarahW]

I want to know whethere the suspect was, or claimed to be, armed. Because if neither of the above is true, the cop used deadly force without justification. 4pm in a grocery store parking lot is no place to discharge a weapon unless your own life has been threatened. And deadly force to stop a fleeing shoplifter is unjustified in any case, per the dept rules as well as common sense.