Mobile, Alabama

From AL.com of September 30, 2006

Clerk shoots would-be robber

The clerk at Tommy's Quick-Stop on Dauphin Island Parkway said he saw his store was about to be robbed Thursday night when two men, one with a pistol in his hand, unsuccessfully tried to push open a pull-only door.

Lay "Bruce" Khat, 36, said he pulled his gun from behind the counter and shot at the men, hitting one of them in the shoulder, when they walked in with a gun pointed at his head.

"Right away I knew something was wrong," Khat said. "They pushed the door instead of pulling it, and I knew something was wrong.

"They just walked in here with guns pointed, they were pointed like this," said Khat, gesturing that one of the men, arm stretched out, held the gun sideways. "I saw them when they pushed (the door), and (I) reached for my gun."

Above the handle of the door is a sign: "Pull."

Shots were exchanged, but Khat said that in the adrenaline-fueled shootout, it was unclear who fired first.

"They were aiming at my head," he said. "I felt good at the time, not nervous or anything. I couldn't take a chance, it was either him or me. So I just grabbed my gun and 'pop,'" said Khat, using his hand as a gun to demonstrate. "I think my gun jammed, that's when they got away."

After one of the robbers was shot during the 9 p.m. incident, the pair ran out of the store -- located near the intersection of Halls Mill Road and Dauphin Island Parkway -- said Officer Eric Gallichant, a police spokesman.

Khat was not injured in the shooting and is not being charged, police said, because he acted in self-defense.