Nashua, New Hampshire

From the Nashua Telegraph of April 27, 2005

Man turns tables on assailant, pulls out gun

The robber came through the door of Bella Variety with his revolver drawn and a bandana over his face, manager Tony Nader said.

He plunked a bag on the counter and loudly demanded that Nader fill it up with cash.

“He said, ‘It’s a hold up, nobody move. I’ll kill everybody,’ and he put the gun in my face,” Nader said.

“I thought, ‘That’s it. Probably he’s on drugs, he’s going to shoot,’ ” Nader said.

Nader opened the register, and began slowly flipping up the clips that hold down the cash in the drawer. He wanted to keep things calm, he said, and give himself time to think.

A friend was beside Nader, behind the counter, and there were four customers in the store, two of them near the counter, he said.

The robber – who remained at large Tuesday – wasn’t in a reflective mood.

“He started yelling,” insisting that Nader hurry up, he said. “He was starting to get hyper.”

He yelled. He swore. He cocked the hammer on his revolver.

Nader picked up the bag in one hand and a handful of cash in the other, holding both out in front of him. He made as if to drop the cash into the bag, but instead dropped both and grabbed for the guns.

His left hand grabbed for the robber’s revolver, while his right hand reached for the semiautomatic on his belt.

The robber pulled away, startled, then ran from the store without the loot as Nader came around from behind the counter with his own pistol drawn, he said.

Nader chased him a short way, until the robber turned a corner, he said.

“He was running like hell,” Nader said, adding later, “Definitely, he’s on foot. He must be an amateur, or a local guy.”“Nobody steals anything from Bella,” he said.

The customers had taken refuge inside the store cooler, and one of them called 911, Nader said.

“Two, three minutes the cops were here,” he said.

Nader has managed the store at 29 Chestnut St. since August, and the incident Monday night was his first robbery, he said. Recounting it Tuesday afternoon, Nader said he wouldn’t do the same thing, under different circumstances.

“The only reason I didn’t exchange fire with the guy, I had a friend next to me,” Nader said. “If I had been alone, I wouldn’t have hesitated to kill the guy . . . Better him than me.”

No subsequent stories about this incident were found.