Self Defense Shooting in St Louis Ends with Fatality

Just after 3 a.m. on Thursday a 26-year-old man from the East St. Louis metropolitan area was shot in an attempted robbery. The store clerk shot the man in self defense when he and three others forced themselves into the locked store.

The Quality Market, a 24 hour market located on 10th Street and Bond Avenue, closes and locks the interior of the store at 11 pm. Business is conducted at a walk-up window during the late night hours.

The four men forced their way through the locked door, which had been weakened by a previous break-in a few weeks prior, and rushed the 21 year old clerk, who had a gun for self defense.

An Illinois State Police Lieutenant said, “The robbers wrestled with the clerk over the gun, the gun discharged during the struggle and struck one of the bandits in the chest.”

The three remaining men left, taking the wounded robber with them. The wounded robber died shortly thereafter in Kenneth Hall Hospital.

Surveillance video confirms the store clerk’s version of the events.

Two men who brought the wounded robber to the hospital were arrested but it is unknown what their connection to the robbery is or if they are, in fact, two of the men from the robbery attempt.

While the shooting was clearly in self-defense, investigators are attempting to determine whether the clerk was allowed to have a gun with him at the store. Also in question is whether or not the three accomplices could be charged in connection to the wounded robber’s death.