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Self Defense news 15
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
`Reflexes' helped city store owner survive encounter
Saturday, June 15, 2002
By KEVIN SHEA
TRENTON - The handgun is just a few weeks old, purchased by Praveen Malhotra because he had been robbed of cash by a gunman just two months after he took over ownership of the Sanhican Liquor Shoppe last October.
On Thursday at 9:15 p.m., Malhotra said, he needed the weapon when another gunman managed to sail through a small, square opening in the Plexiglas fortress in the Edgewood Avenue store designed to prevent such an invasion.
Malhotra, stunned by the man's speed as he slid through the window with a shove from another masked accomplice, said he instinctively grabbed the .357 Magnum revolver stashed nearby.
When Malhotra saw the dark-clothed bandit had a gun in his hands as he tumbled to the floor, he pulled the trigger twice. "I thought `holy smoke' and then `boom, boom,' " he said yesterday.
Malhotra's next words, as the gunman moaned and moved a bit, gun still in his hands: "Don't move. If you get up, I will shoot you again."
Malhotra said he was on autopilot at this point and dialed 911 with one hand as he trained the weapon on the injured man. "You don't take time, you react."
As the intruder - later identified as 20-year-old Steven Gudger of Essex County - lay wounded, Malhotra was transformed from a diminutive, bespectacled liquor store owner to a growling protector of his property, and he let the wounded man know.
"He was still moaning and moving. Did he have a vest? I don't know. Maybe I'll relax and he'll get up and shoot," Malhotra said. He repeated the demand while still on the phone with a dispatcher: "You get up and I'll shoot you again."
"All I see is this guy flying through the window, hood on his face with a gun in his hand. All I know is the gun is in front of me," he said. "God was with me. My reflexes worked."
Gudger's accomplice, also masked, disappeared when the shooting started.
When officers arrived, Malhotra passed the keys to the large glass door to the secure area to a policeman through a change cup opening. He said didn't put his weapon down until officers took the gun from the downed suspect's hands.
Their first question, Malhotra said: "How did he get inside here?"
The encounter lasted just seconds, Malhotra estimated yesterday as he recounted every heartbeat of it. He was back behind the counter of his shop after just a few hours of sleep.
Police spokesman Sgt. Jim Dellaira say Malhotra's actions appear lawful and justified and the weapon was legally purchased. A standard investigation is ongoing.
Stopping only to wait on a steady flow of his regulars who came in to buy smokes, tall cans of beer and small bottles of liquor, Malhotra said he is thankful to have had a loaded weapon in his shop.
"I just went for my gun and shot him," Malhotra said. "Maybe if I didn't, he would have shot me. I feared for my life. Luckily my gun was ready to go. It saved me, my life."
He said he never took shooting instruction, but said: "I'm a fan of cowboy movies."
Malhotra, while happy to be alive, was maddened when a reporter told him the man he shot, Gudger, was wanted by state corrections officials on an escape charge for allegedly walking away from a Camden halfway house.
"If he had just waited out there, I would probably have given him the money. Money you can make, life you can't replace."
On May 17, 2002, Gudger, originally from East Orange, walked away from Hope Hall in Camden, which he had been released to from the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Chesterfield, said corrections spokeswoman Deirdre Fedkenheuer.
Gudger went to prison in March of 2001 for a robbery conviction from Mercer County. He had a one-year mandatory minimum term. If Gudger had lived by the rules of Hope Hall until October, he would have been given a parole hearing, she said.
Gudger was in serious condition yesterday at Capital Health System at Fuld hospital.
Malhotra, of North Brunswick, who also owns the laundromat next to his liquor store, left a daytime printing job in East Brunswick last fall to run the shop. Sometimes at night, his wife, a hospital clerk in Old Bridge, works with him.
He said he plans to stay in business in the city. He likes his law-abiding regulars and believes he has earned the respect of the young men who hang out in front of his store everyday. "I have bills to pay. I am just trying to eke out a living."
http://www.nj.com/news/times/mercer/index.ssf?/base/news-2/102413160364884.xml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Saturday, June 15, 2002
By KEVIN SHEA
TRENTON - The handgun is just a few weeks old, purchased by Praveen Malhotra because he had been robbed of cash by a gunman just two months after he took over ownership of the Sanhican Liquor Shoppe last October.
On Thursday at 9:15 p.m., Malhotra said, he needed the weapon when another gunman managed to sail through a small, square opening in the Plexiglas fortress in the Edgewood Avenue store designed to prevent such an invasion.
Malhotra, stunned by the man's speed as he slid through the window with a shove from another masked accomplice, said he instinctively grabbed the .357 Magnum revolver stashed nearby.
When Malhotra saw the dark-clothed bandit had a gun in his hands as he tumbled to the floor, he pulled the trigger twice. "I thought `holy smoke' and then `boom, boom,' " he said yesterday.
Malhotra's next words, as the gunman moaned and moved a bit, gun still in his hands: "Don't move. If you get up, I will shoot you again."
Malhotra said he was on autopilot at this point and dialed 911 with one hand as he trained the weapon on the injured man. "You don't take time, you react."
As the intruder - later identified as 20-year-old Steven Gudger of Essex County - lay wounded, Malhotra was transformed from a diminutive, bespectacled liquor store owner to a growling protector of his property, and he let the wounded man know.
"He was still moaning and moving. Did he have a vest? I don't know. Maybe I'll relax and he'll get up and shoot," Malhotra said. He repeated the demand while still on the phone with a dispatcher: "You get up and I'll shoot you again."
"All I see is this guy flying through the window, hood on his face with a gun in his hand. All I know is the gun is in front of me," he said. "God was with me. My reflexes worked."
Gudger's accomplice, also masked, disappeared when the shooting started.
When officers arrived, Malhotra passed the keys to the large glass door to the secure area to a policeman through a change cup opening. He said didn't put his weapon down until officers took the gun from the downed suspect's hands.
Their first question, Malhotra said: "How did he get inside here?"
The encounter lasted just seconds, Malhotra estimated yesterday as he recounted every heartbeat of it. He was back behind the counter of his shop after just a few hours of sleep.
Police spokesman Sgt. Jim Dellaira say Malhotra's actions appear lawful and justified and the weapon was legally purchased. A standard investigation is ongoing.
Stopping only to wait on a steady flow of his regulars who came in to buy smokes, tall cans of beer and small bottles of liquor, Malhotra said he is thankful to have had a loaded weapon in his shop.
"I just went for my gun and shot him," Malhotra said. "Maybe if I didn't, he would have shot me. I feared for my life. Luckily my gun was ready to go. It saved me, my life."
He said he never took shooting instruction, but said: "I'm a fan of cowboy movies."
Malhotra, while happy to be alive, was maddened when a reporter told him the man he shot, Gudger, was wanted by state corrections officials on an escape charge for allegedly walking away from a Camden halfway house.
"If he had just waited out there, I would probably have given him the money. Money you can make, life you can't replace."
On May 17, 2002, Gudger, originally from East Orange, walked away from Hope Hall in Camden, which he had been released to from the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Chesterfield, said corrections spokeswoman Deirdre Fedkenheuer.
Gudger went to prison in March of 2001 for a robbery conviction from Mercer County. He had a one-year mandatory minimum term. If Gudger had lived by the rules of Hope Hall until October, he would have been given a parole hearing, she said.
Gudger was in serious condition yesterday at Capital Health System at Fuld hospital.
Malhotra, of North Brunswick, who also owns the laundromat next to his liquor store, left a daytime printing job in East Brunswick last fall to run the shop. Sometimes at night, his wife, a hospital clerk in Old Bridge, works with him.
He said he plans to stay in business in the city. He likes his law-abiding regulars and believes he has earned the respect of the young men who hang out in front of his store everyday. "I have bills to pay. I am just trying to eke out a living."
http://www.nj.com/news/times/mercer/index.ssf?/base/news-2/102413160364884.xml
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Armed intruder terrifies family
17.06.2002
7.30am
A South Auckland family cowered in a bedroom behind a locked door early today as an armed intruder tried to bash his way in.
Police say the man was armed with a revolver when he smashed his way through the front door of the suburban Mangere house at 12.10am.
Police said the man confronted the family, threatening them with the gun.
"The occupants managed to barricade themselves in a bedroom and call police," said Senior Sergeant Marty Cox of the police northern communications centre in Auckland.
"The person then tried to force his way into the bedroom, trying to kick down the door."
When police arrived at the front of the house the armed man ran out the back door of the house.
A man was due to appear in Manukau District Court today on home invasion and firearm charges.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=2047107&thesection=news&thesubsection=general
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
KOCHI -- A woman allegedly killed by her boyfriend early Saturday had consulted police the previous day over her fear that he might attack her, police sources said Sunday.
Police have placed Akio Udaka, 48, a construction company operator, on a nationwide wanted list for murdering Chieko Koji, 55, president of a designing company, in the predawn hours of Saturday.
A high-ranking officer at the local police station defended his station's response. "Ms. Koji told us she would not file a criminal complaint about the incident. I've heard that she did not seem desperate. The case resulted in a tragedy, but the officers' response was appropriate," Naoteru Komi, vice director of Kochi Police Station, said.
Koji called the Kochi Prefectural Police headquarters at around 8 p.m., Friday, and complained that her boyfriend frequently beat her up.
At around 9:30 p.m., she visited Kochi Police Station and described Udaka's physical abuse in detail and consulted officers about her fear that his violence might escalate.
One of the officers advised her to contact police whenever there was an imminent threat of being attacked, and to stay at a relative's home if she worried about being attacked at her own home.
However, Koji went straight home at around 10:30 p.m., after which Udaka attacked her and her daughter, police said. In the attack, Koji died and her 34-year-old daughter was seriously injured. (Mainichi Shimbun, June 16, 2002)
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20020616p2a00m0dm012000c.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Armed Man Shoots Three in Manhattan
NEW YORK (AP) - A heavily armed black man allegedly shot three people and tried to set patrons at a Manhattan bar on fire Sunday before being wounded by officers and arrested in what police said was a racially motivated attack.
Steven Johnson, 34, was charged with attempted murder after what Police Commissioner Ray Kelly described as a ``very bizarre crime by this deranged individual.''
Johnson was carrying three loaded guns, 153 rounds of ammunition and a samurai sword when he approached four white people walking in the East Village and told them: ``I have a problem with you,'' Kelly said.
Johnson shot one of the men in the upper body, followed him as he ran to the door of the bar and shot him again, police say. Johnson then entered the bar and ordered up to 40 patrons to the kitchen, police said.
A 54-year-old Asian man who owns a store next to the bar heard the shots and peeked in, and Johnson shot him in the wrist, police said.
Johnson, who was also carrying a police baton, a bottle of kerosene, a fireplace lighter and more than 100 plastic handcuffs, then allegedly forced a woman to start putting flex cuffs on the hostages while he sprayed the crowd with kerosene and fired occasional shots at police cars outside.
Witnesses told police that Johnson was ``ranting about white people and vowed revenge for thousands of years of suffering.'' Johnson said that he was having ``fun'' and that ``a real man chooses when he dies,'' Kelly said.
When Johnson pulled out the lighter, two Manhattan women jumped him, and he shot one in the leg, police said. Officers heard the shots and stormed the bar, grazing Johnson in the head and taking him into custody.
``Those two women did the right thing, a very important thing ... they were very brave,'' Kelly said.
Johnson was charged with attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon. He had not retained a lawyer; he was in police custody Sunday evening and was unavailable for comment. There was no telephone listing for him at the address provided by police.
One victim was hospitalized in serious condition, while the other two were in stable condition. The suspect was in stable condition, police said.
Johnson lives in Brooklyn with his 10-year-old son and has been despondent since his wife died in March, neighbors told investigators.
Police who searched his home said they found a note taped to a wall that said, ``Tell the boys in blue I won't be easy.''
http://webcenter.newssearch.netscape.com/aolns_display.adp?key=200206162247000123241_aolns.src
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878