Jacksonville, Florida

From Jacksonville.com of April 15, 2005

Westside store clerk shoots would-be robbery suspect

The 64-year-old mother of 10 reacted quickly to save her own life while working at Apple Gate Food Store.

Janet Grammer decided in an instant: Thursday wasn't her day to die.

So when a would-be robber burst into a Jacksonville convenience store shortly before 1 p.m. and fired two shots while demanding she clean out the cash register, the 64-year-old clerk and mother of 10 knew one thing.

"I figured either I was going to have to pull the trigger or I'd be dead," said Grammer.

So she did.

Faking a moment's hesitation, Grammer reached under the counter for a .38 special and came up firing, her first shot hitting the man in the chest at point-blank range.

The force knocked him down and jolted the gun from his hand, she said. As the man staggered for the door of Apple Gate Food Store at Wesconnett Boulevard and 105th Street, she fired two more rounds, police said.

The suspect left a trail of blood before running into nearby woods, authorities said.
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The incident would have been the store's third robbery in two weeks without Grammer's quick thinking, said store owner George Rubboz.

"I'm telling you, she is the lady," he said.

Grammer said she's handled guns before, during a 10-year stint as a security guard years ago in Charleston, S.C. But she said never thought she'd have to use one, even after warding off a robbery about eight months ago while working at a store near Interstate 10.

"He was thinking I was old, I would give up the money," Grammer said of her assailant Thursday, while standing with her twin sister, Jenice Overstreet, near the crime scene.

"She's going to feel bad if this guy dies," Overstreet said, "but what's she going to do? It was her or him."