Houston, Texas

From the Houston Chronicle of November 19, 2005

Store employee fatally shot in southwest convenience store

An argument in a southwest Houston convenience store this morning turned deadly when a man who left to get a weapon from his car returned and shot a store employee to death, police said.

The gunman was wounded shortly after in a shootout with a store clerk on the 8100 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard at about 11:30 a.m. and is recovering at Ben Taub General Hospital.

The victim, a middle-aged man, died at the scene.

Houston Police Department Investigator J. C. Bonaby said the gunman left the store after a verbal argument with a store employee he accused of stealing his wallet. The store clerk ignored his requests to call the police, Bonaby said.

"The suspect said to the clerk, 'You should have called the police, you'll be sorry,' as he was leaving the store," Bonaby said.

The gunman returned with a sawed-off shotgun and shot the store employee once, killing him. As the gunman was leaving, he fired at the clerk, who had obtained his own handgun. The clerk hit the gunman twice in the ensuing shootout, once in the abdomen and once on the shoulder, Bonaby said.

The gunman collapsed beside a gas pump, where he was later arrested, Bonaby said. The clerk was not injured.

The incident is still under investigation.