Macon, Georgia



From the Macon Telegraph of December 19, 2003

Store clerk shoots, kills would-be robber



Uzair Khan looked at the end of a pistol and thought his life was over Wednesday night.



It was just like the story he'd read in the newspaper hours earlier about a fatal armed robbery - except this time it was his store.



Khan was closing up Dani's Food Mart on Williamson Road in Macon shortly before midnight when Melvin Dugger, 17, walked in waving a gun and demanding money.



Although Khan quickly handed over the cash drawer, Dugger refused to leave.



"I begged him not to shoot me," Khan said. "But he was looking around, looking around. He wouldn't leave."



Those were the last seconds of an armed robbery that seemed like an eternity to Khan. Before it was over, Dugger would be dead, and Khan would be thankful for pulling out his weapon.



"I prayed every day that I never had to kill nobody," Khan, 33, said. "I never wanted to do anything like that."



Macon Police Lt. Jimmy Barbee said Thursday that Khan will not face any charges in the shooting, and the store video appears to show that he acted in self-defense.