MISLEADING TITLE — Store owner will never be charged. The robber
undoubtedly will turn out to be a career criminal and crackhead.
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nbc6.com
Address:http://www.nbc6.com/news/big_story.cfm?story_pk=940501&image=local_news
6:20 PM 11/29/01
Storeowner in Shooting May Face Charges

Gastonia, N.C. –A Gastonia storeowner could face charges
after shooting and killing a robbery suspect Wednesday night, police
said.

The owner of the West Main Newsstand and Book Nook, Gary Cannon, tells
police he shot the suspect because he was trying to rob his store.

Police are still searching for a second suspect. Investigators say
they have some good leads because the suspect’s shoes fell off in the
parking lot as he ran away from the scene.

The only way into the business is through a back door. Several
customers who were in the store last night said they feared for their
lives when two men wearing panty hose over their faces walked into the
store and demanded money.

“I was thinking about my kid and my husband at home and if I was ever
going to see them again,” one witness said.

The suspects were carrying guns and threatened to kill them, witnesses
said.

The storeowner says the robber stuck a gun in his face and threatened
his life. But when the robber swung the gun around to point it at
two pregnant women, the merchant says he reached into a friend’s purse
and shot Derick Christopher Foust, 29 in the throat and chest.

“It’s scary when you got a gun in your face,” Cannon said. “These
young people don’t realize that all of us are not going to go for
that. I’m not going to work 140 hours a week and let somebody come in
here and threaten my life and my business, my people and me not protect
myself. I’d rather be dead.”

After the shooting, one of the customers started performing CPR.

Eva Colinger is four months pregnant. She took the mask
off Foust’s face and wiped his mouth.

“I prayed that maybe he would breathe if he had kids, if he had a wife
or you know a mother,” she said. “And that’s what I kept telling
him is that he’s got to breathe.”

Foust died at Gaston Memorial Hospital. It is not clear yet if
the storeowner will be charged. The DA has not received the
official police report yet but he tells 6NEWS from what he knows, this
does appear to be a case of self-defense.

There were six people inside the store at the time of the shooting,
including two pregnant women.

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