LAS VEGAS - Police say 18-year-old Jhalon Glass walked into a Centennial Hills Super Pawn Wednesday morning with a gun and the intent to rob the business. He did not leave the business alive.
Glass and a pawn shop employee exchanged gunfire. Glass lost the gun battle and his life.
"The clerk's life is in danger. If there's anybody else in the store, their lives are certainly in danger with a guy in there pointing a gun. The clerk did what he had to do," said The Gun Store owner and author Bob Irwin. "Deadly force can be used to protect human life. If a human being is in danger of being killed or suffering what the courts call ‘great bodily harm' - it means a serious injury - deadly force is usable under the laws."
An Oklahoma City pharmacist this summer received a life sentence for killing an armed robber in May 2009. Jerome Ersland shot a teen robber in the head, chased two other crooks out of his drugstore and came back to shoot the bandit five more times with a different gun.
In 2009, Las Vegas pawn shop owner Victor Park shot and killed an unarmed thief who darted for the door after stealing an expensive watch. This may have been a man protecting his business, but the district attorney charged Park with murder. His trial is scheduled to begin in October.
At the Valero gas station on Charleston Boulevard and Jones Boulevard, workers are on alert if a crook strikes.
"We personally don't keep guns, but we do take other safety precautions like the pepper spray. If someone came to me with a gun, I'd pepper spray them so fast. My life is on the line," Valero worker Naaila Hossain said. "The safety of our customers is obviously our number one priority. We've installed better lights. We've installed more cameras. We've installed better doors. Everything we've done is not only for our safety, but our customers' safety."
While the investigation is ongoing into Wednesday's pawn shop shooting, Metro Police officers say the department will not press charges against the employee who shot the suspect, because a clear and present danger to the clerk's life existed.
If the suspected robber stole merchandise but did not present a danger to anyone's life, deadly force would not be justified.
