Robber shot and killed trying to hold up California coin shop
stonej
Arizona Coin Collector
"stonej" <sto...@mail.lib.msu.edu> wrote in message
news:2f76e877-bbed-4b47...@f3g2000vbf.googlegroups.com...
> http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/feb/13/bn12shot214195-robber-shot/
Hello
East San Diego area is not the best part of
the City. Seeing the bars on the front of
the store also tells you a lot more of the
area.
I wonder how far the coin shop was from the
city of El Cajon, California? I spent a night
there, too trashed out from a party years ago.
..
Mike Marotta
wrote:
> East San Diego area is not the best part of
> the City. Seeing the bars on the front of
> the store also tells you a lot more of the
> area.
I don't know the San Diego area, but a coin stoe in Birmingham,
Michigan, has bars and a buzzer and still suffered a break in.
Wikipedia cites the US Census for 2000: "The median income for a
household in the city was $80,861, and the median income for a family
was $110,627." Bars and buzzers have little to do with the
neighborhood and more to do with precautions.
Mike M.
MIchael E. Marotta
"An ounce of prevention"
Paul Ciszek
In article <QuadnaJFPuFYnAvU...@earthlink.com>,
>news:2f76e877-bbed-4b47...@f3g2000vbf.googlegroups.com...
>
>> http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/feb/13/bn12shot214195-robber-shot/
>
>Hello
>
>East San Diego area is not the best part of
>the City. Seeing the bars on the front of
>the store also tells you a lot more of the
>area.
I thought bars in the windows were standard for shops dealing in precious
metals.
--
Please reply to: | "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is
pciszek at panix dot com | indistinguishable from malice."
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Arizona Coin Collector
"stonej" <sto...@mail.lib.msu.edu> wrote in message
news:2f76e877-bbed-4b47...@f3g2000vbf.googlegroups.com...
> http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/feb/13/bn12shot214195-robber-shot/
Hello
This is an update from the orginal story above.
-------------
FROM:
http://www.10news.com/news/18736062/detail.html
Coin Shop Owner Speaks On Deadly Robbery Attempt
POSTED: 5:12 pm PST February 17, 2009
UPDATED: 6:15 pm PST February 17, 2009
SAN DIEGO -- The owner of the Old Coin Shop and a
clerk had just handled their first customer of
the day when two men wearing hoods came to the
security door.
"We buzzed them in, they pulled up masks, guns
and charged down," said the owner.
The men were on them in seconds, waving guns and
yelling that "this was a robbery."
"It was my thought that if we don't do something,
we don't react to this, we will be executed in the
store. That's the modus operandi -- lie people down
on floor, they get what they want, shoot you, walk
out, and have half an hour before anyone knows
anything happened," said the owner.
The owner thought about other robberies, such as a
robbery at another coin shop in La Mesa last spring
in which 3 people were shot.
He and his clerk grabbed their own handguns.
"We fired, fired in defense our life, of being shot
at," said the owner.
Bullets flew in each direction, with two striking
one of the intruders and eventually killing him.
Another bullet lodged in a wrought iron fence on
the other side of El Cajon Blvd.
"Yes, it was crazy; pandemonium," the owner said.
The second robber escaped on foot, leaving his
partner dying on the ground in front of the shop.
The shop owner talks about the stress, sleepless
nights and the fact that the family of the dead
man is going through hell, too.
Last Friday afternoon, dozens of the family and
friends of Michael Watkins, Jr. came to the scene
and were terribly upset.
The shop owner regrets the loss of life, but also
knows what he and his clerk faced that morning.
". What if we hadn't done what we did? We'd both
be dead," said the owner.
The robbery attempt at the Old Coin Shop was the
first since it opened almost 50 years ago.
The incident was a harrowing moment for the owner.
"When somebody is waving a gun in front of your
face, it looks like a cannon," said the owner.
"We felt we were going to die. You react based
on that."
The gun battle left one man dying in front of the
shop with the other running off down an alley.
"I'm absolutely convinced that we would both be
dead right now and that doesn't leave you a lot
of choice. We don't brandish guns, we're not out
to shoot people. We're not cowboys, we're
businessmen," said the owner.
Watkins' mother, along with dozens of other people,
showed up to the shop just outside of the crime
scene tape. They were visibly agitated.
It is an emotion shared by the men behind the counter.
"We're so stressed out. We haven't slept," said the
owner.
The owner considers what kind of security will be
needed if and when he reopens his store.
"I don't want to make a fort, because then you're
locked in. You're a prisoner of your own store,"
said the owner.
..