Culprit, store owner die in during holdup

A man in the process of robbing Firmin Used Cars is shot by the owner but manages to shoot back before his death at the scene.

By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published December 21, 2002

TAMPA -- Firmin Used Cars was set to close about 6:30 p.m. Friday when a man entered the small concrete block office and demanded money.

Authorities said he flashed a handgun. He wore a red T-shirt on his head and a blue bandana across his face. The store's owner and an employee gave the man money, but he demanded more.

The owner promised he had more in a back office. But when he went back there, he retrieved a handgun from a desk and came back firing at the robber, said Tampa police spokeswoman Katie Hughes.

The robber was hit, but in the last act of his life, he squeezed off several shots of his own, hitting the owner in the chest.

The robber, Darron Samuel Stitt, 20, died at the scene. He lay face down for hours in the office lobby as investigators flooded the scene.

The business owner was taken to Tampa General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Several people identified the business owner as Jerry Firmin, 71. They shuddered at the thought of him as the victim of a violent crime.

"I've known him 20 years," said Michael Moss, who works nearby, as he stared past police cars to the small office where the shootout took place.

"He (was) a good-natured guy. He's sold several cars for next to nothing just to help people out."

Hughes said that the holiday season often brings an increase in robberies, though most don't end in a shootout.

"These people don't have (money) and they want (it) from those they think do," she said.

Stitt was no stranger to trouble. He was arrested four times in the last four years on charges of domestic battery, according to state records. Other charges against him include resisting an officer without violence and failure to appear in court.

While several cars at Firmin Used Cars had been stolen or damaged in the past, records showed no prior robberies there, Hughes said.

"Here was somebody just trying to make a damn living," Moss said angrily. "This is just a little anonymous place you'd never know was here."

About 20 cars sat parked in the small gravel lot at the corner of Kennedy Boulevard and Edison Avenue, along with several Budget and Ryder moving trucks the business offers for rent. A sign advertised auto rentals starting at $22.88 a day.

Despite the police tape and the flurry of emergency vehicles, life marched on around the murder scene.

Next door, a crew of workers continued changing oil and tires at the Tires Plus. Several employees at nearby Tribeca Color Salon peered out the window, then went back to coloring customers' hair.

Across the street, the parking lot was full at Mr. T's Italian Restaurant, where a marquee advertised live opera for the night.

Hughes, awash in emergency lights and the body of the robber lying in the office behind her, shook her head.

"It's a sad thing to have happen right here at the holidays. It's so sad."

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