Jackson, Mississippi

Armed self-defense doesn't always work as hoped. Perhaps it would have been worse if he hadn't gone for the rifle. From the December 10, 2006 Jackson Clarion-Ledger:

Curtis Addison's Gallatin Street auto body shop was burglarized. To protect it, he began to sleep there. He kept a gun in his pocket.

And now here he was on a warm summertime night, slouched and asleep in a dirty flower-print chair.

Just before midnight, a young man, tall and slim with a scarf hiding his mouth, waved a pistol in Addison's face and ordered him to remove his pants.

Addison awoke. He hesitated. He could not reach his gun. Not like this.

"Please don't shoot me, man," he begged. "I ain't done nothing. I got a daughter I'm trying to live for."

Before long, Addison went against what the experts say to do. He believed he had no choice. He stopped cooperating, and he attacked.

The gunman fired. Five shots landed. Addison bled from his leg, his arm, his hip, his chest and his belly.

But Addison was lucky. His story does not end there. Weeks later, he would be back at work, his accused attacker locked up in jail.

...

He kept a rifle under the counter, a two-shot Derringer pistol in his pants pocket. Besides that, he is a big man, a former football player with the kind of body that could easily hurt a smaller man.

So there he was two days after the scooter theft, July 6, in his shop. He fell asleep in that flower-print chair watching the news, his head cocked to the left. He remembers that clearly because that's how he was when the gunman woke him.

"Get up. Get up!" the man yelled. "Take off your pants!"

Addison knew the man wanted his pants because his wallet and keys were in there. No big deal, really, because he kept his cash in his shirt pocket.

But still, Addison did not like the look in the young man's eyes, droopy, mysterious eyes that held no shame. He believed the scarf-faced man meant to kill him.

Slowly, carefully, Addison removed his pants, the skinny young man still yelling.

The robber snatched the pants away.

The Derringer in the pocket skittered across the tile floor.

Addison attacked.

He shoved the gunman but was too far away to tackle him or to go for the big gun he held.

Bang!

A bullet ripped through a pane of glass.

Bang!

Another one tore through Addison's right leg.

The gunman took off.

Addison darted to the office, slumped into a chair, and reached for the phone.

The gunman returned.

Bang! He shot Addison again. Bang! Again.

Addison ran into the snack room and barricaded the door. There was no phone in that room.

His rifle remained under the counter, his tiny pistol in the hall, useless and sitting on the tile.

Addison bled from his leg, his hip, his arm.

He waited.

Silence.

He left the snack room and went to the office phone. He was sitting there when the gunman returned.

He shot Addison twice more. The chest. The belly.

Addison ran to the front counter. He grabbed the rifle, left the pistol.

He stormed into the office with hate in his heart, but the robber was gone.

...

He returned to work in August, and said he feels great. The robber did not get the $400 in his shirt pocket, and Addison has changed the locks on his home and his business.

The police seized his pistol and rifle to run background checks. He said he purchased both legally.

The man accused of shooting him, 23-year-old Rodney Mendenhall, is jailed with no bond on an aggravated assault charge. A trial date has not been set.

Since reopening his shop, Addison bought a new pistol, which he keeps in his pocket.