Croyden, Pennsylvania

From Philadelphia’s ABCLocal.com of August 24, 2005

Store Shooting on Bristol Pike

An attempted robbery and shooting left a Bucks County store owner, a customer, and one of the alleged robbers with bullet wounds.

It happened Tuesday afternoon around 2pm at Station Check Cashing and Pawn Shop on Bristol Pike in Croyden, Bristol Township.

Melissa Sauer, an employee at the store, spoke exclusively to Action News about what happened. She says her boss was showing a customer how to work a DVD player when two men walked in.

Melissa Sauer/Pawn Shop Employee: "They walked around the display cases and started... lifted up his shirt and started trying to pull out a gun and it kind of got stuck in his pants."

Melissa says that gave her enough time to run behind and lock an iron security door to the back of the shop where she called police.

"They were banging on the door for a couple of seconds and then gunshots, like 15 to 20 gunshots I heard."

And investigators say the suspects were not doing all the shooting.

Lt. Chick McGuigan/Bristol Twp. Police: "They exchanged gunfire with the owner. They both fled the store. One of them was wounded and one was not."

Police were on the scene in moments and captured the suspects trying to get to their get-away car about two blocks away on Charles Avenue.

Meantime, Melissa walked out to find shattered glass and her boss wounded on the floor. He called out saying...

"'Melissa call 911! I've been shot.' So I called 911...I realized our customer was also shot."

Two individuals are in custody. One suspect has been injured and is hospitalized. The customer is also hospitalized in critical condition.

From the Trenton, NJ Trentonian of August 26, 2005

DA: Shootout victim an accomplice

The hapless person who was inside the Station Check Cashing and Pawn Shop during Wednesday’s shootout has turned out to be an accomplice in the botched attempted robbery.

District Attorney Diane Gibbons identified the other person in the pawn shop when the shots rang out as Vitaly Liberman, 34, a white male, of Rutland Street in Philadelphia.

"It became clear during the investigation that the customer inside the Check Cashing Station inspecting video equipment was there for a different purpose," Gibbons said yesterday.

"He is, in fact, a confederate of the two men who attempted to rob the store. (Liberman) was inside to make sure the two people who were inside the bulletproof booth to come out so they could be robbed."

Once they were tipped off by Liberman via cell phone that the employees were out of the booth, Philadelphia residents Walter Earl Leon, 19, and Pedrita Moreta, 21, with a black substance of their faces to make it look as if they had mustaches, stormed into the pawn shop located at 721 Bristol Pike at around 2 p.m., Gibbons said.

Moreta opened fire and store owner Firas Nusire probably returned the fire, police surmise.

"It was quite a shootout inside that store," Gibbons said.

"We will have to investigate which bullets went where."

In the end, Nusire was shot in the elbow, Moreta was shot in the left abdomen, Liberman sustained gun shots to the right shoulder and right thigh and display cases, front glass door and more was shattered by bullets.

"There were a lot of shots fired in a small space," said Lt. Chick McGuigan, police spokesman.

"We don’t know how many shots were fired."

Leon and Moreta were captured minutes later in the back seat of a 1998 Dodge Intrepid on nearby Belmont Avenue.

Police found the keys to the car in Liberman’s pocket after being found lying on the floor of the pawn shop, tipping investigators off to the ruse.