Merchant shoots robbery suspect

The store owner holds the man at gunpoint until the police arrive.

By ABBIE VANSICKLE
Published July 4, 2007

The convenience store owner – whose name has been withheld – describes the events leading to his shooting one of the robbers outside of his store to Tampa police officers.
	[Times photo: Ken Helle]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Ken Helle] Part of the store surveillance equipment that the robbers took and the store owner recovered after he stopped one of the men fleeing his store.

TAMPA – A shop owner who had just been robbed chased two men down a South Tampa street Tuesday, shooting one and holding him at gunpoint until police arrived.

Police are still investigating the shooting, which injured Clifford Darden, 48, one of the men accused in the robbery.

"They were robbing him, " police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said of the shop owner's actions. "He did fear for his life."

Just before 2 p.m., two men walked into a Kwik Stop Food Store at West Shore Boulevard and Ohio Avenue.

One ordered a sandwich, then he walked behind the counter and pulled out a gun.

The robber demanded money from the shop owner, who opened two cash registers. The second robber joined the first, and both men grabbed cash, said Davis. The men also took lottery tickets and snatched surveillance equipment.

They ran outside, heading east on Ohio Avenue. The shop owner chased them, gun in hand, Davis said. One, described as a black man about 200 pounds, 5 foot 9 to 5 foot 10 inches tall, wearing a red shirt, jacket and ball cap, got into a maroon Ford Taurus with tinted windows and disappeared.

The shop owner, whose name was not released, shot at the second man. Neighbors heard between four and six shots. Police said Darden had bullet wounds in his arm and abdomen.

The shop owner told police that as he ran after the robber, the man paused, turned toward him and pointed a gun. The shop owner shot him, then tried to get the robber's gun. The two wrestled on the grass between two parked cars, and the shop owner got the gun and told the robber not to move until police arrived.

Once investigators arrived, Darden was taken to Tampa General Hospital. His condition was unavailable. He will be booked into the Hillsborough County jail once he is treated, Davis said.

Darden is a mason with a Miami address, state records show. He has been arrested eight times in Florida, beginning in 1986, when he was convicted of marijuana smuggling in Miami, records show. In 1994, he was convicted of robbery with a firearm in Marion County.

His most recent arrest was in 1994 for violating probation.

Tuesday afternoon, Fuad Salem, 27, watched police examine the scene. He said his cousin was the shop owner.

"He was by himself in the store, " Salem said. "They had the gun right against his head."

Victoria Schmidt, 51, who lives across the street from the shop, heard the shots and thought it was a car backfiring. She looked out her front window and watched the shop owner and Darden struggle on the ground.

"I've never seen anyone being shot before, " she said. "He could barely walk."

She saw blood running down Darden's leg and heard him yell, "Get me an ambulance!"

Schmidt said she often sees suspicious behavior in the area, and has found baggies of drugs on her front lawn.

Police records show seven calls for service to the shop since October 2004, including two burglaries and a shooting into an occupied building.

Deborah Beal, 52, watched it all unfold. A self-proclaimed "nosy neighbor, " she has a police scanner and watches Ohio Avenue from her front window.

She said she saw a green Lexus drive by slowly out front, then saw three men running down the street.

Then, she said, she saw the shop owner shoot the man.

"He was shooting him as he was running after him, " she said.

So is a shop owner allowed to chase down and harm a robber?

It's a subject that lawyer John Fitzgibbons knows much about.

He represented Lawrence Storer, a Thai restaurant owner accused of hitting and killing Shantavious Wilson, 24, with his Ford Explorer after Wilson robbed him at gunpoint at his downtown Tampa restaurant.

Fitzgibbons said it's a tricky area of law, and much depends on the facts of a case, but communities are often sympathetic to store owners protecting themselves from robbers. Quick, emotional decisions can also be a reason for the action to be considered justifiable.

"When you cause the death or the injury in the heat of passion, that can be a defense, " he said.

News researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Abbie VanSickle can be reached at 226-3373 or vansickle@sptimes.com.

[Last modified July 4, 2007, 03:00:26]