(NJ) Merchant guns down violent robber 01-01-05

<http://www.courierpostonline.com/news/southjersey/m010105c.htm>

City merchant kills attacker
Saturday, January 1, 2005
By TOM LOUNSBERRY and LUIS PUGA
Courier-Post Staff
CAMDEN

The owner of an East Camden store fatally shot a man attempting to rob
the business while holding the owner’s wife at knifepoint Friday
afternoon, authorities said.

The shooting, the city’s 54th homicide in 2004, occurred about 12:30
p.m. at Camden City Wireless and Fishing Supplies in the 2600 block of
Westfield Avenue.

The man walked into the store and grabbed the proprietor’s wife,
according to a statement by Camden County Prosecutor Vincent P. Sarubbi
and Camden Police Chief Edwin J. Figueroa.

“He reportedly threatened her with a knife and told her he was robbing
the store,” said Bill Shralow, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.

The owner, who is in his 30s, drew a handgun and told the man to release
his wife, who is in her 20s. When the man refused, the owner shot the
man once in the head.

The would-be robber, a 32-year-old man whose last known address was in
Philadelphia, was pronounced dead at the scene, Shralow said.
His body was taken to the Camden County Morgue in Pennsauken for an
autopsy. His name was withheld pending notification of his family.

No one else was in the store at the time of the shooting, Shralow said.

A preliminary investigation indicates the handgun was properly
registered and permitted to be kept inside the store.

The proprietor and his wife, who are Asian, were being interviewed by
investigators at police headquarters. Their names were being withheld
and no charges were filed, Shralow said.

“I can’t believe this happened in daylight,” said
Margarita Gonzalez of East Camden, who stood Friday evening across the
street from the shooting scene selling New Year’s Eve party hats and
plastic horns with her husband, Francisco.

“A lot of bad things have been happening lately,” Francisco Gonzalez
said, noting police had chased a rapist, who had been plaguing the
neighborhood, behind his home on 22nd Street.

The neighborhood is often noisy. He said he learned about the shooting
only after police arrived and he asked detectives what was happening.

“There are a lot of cops here,” said Margarita Gonzalez. “But, the more
cops there are, the more violence you see. It should be the opposite.”

A block down 27th Street, Jose Henriquez, owner of La Espanola Grocery
Store, said he’s been robbed at gunpoint four times, the last time eight
days ago.

“It was a 12- and 16-year-old,” he said of the gun-wielding bandits.
“I’ve been lucky that nothing has happened to me.”

With Friday’s shooting, a total of 54 people have been slain during 2004
in the city, including four by police and one by the store owner.

The city’s record number of homicides is 60 in 1995.

Henriquez, who’s owned his store for 10 years, said police alone can’t
solve all the city’s crime problems.

“I think the community has to educate its children and make sure they
stay in schools,” he said. “People have to teach their children that you
can’t get things easily. That in life, things don’t come easy.”

Reach Tom Lounsberry at (856) 486-2470 or
[email protected]