CHICAGO (AP) — A customer with a concealed carry license shot and killed an armed man attempting to rob a Chicago neighborhood store, police said Sunday.
A masked man walked into the store and currency exchange about 7 p.m. Saturday on the city’s southwest side, displayed a handgun and announced a robbery to an employee, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. The gunman then pointed his weapon at another employee and forced her to the back of the store.
The armed customer then fatally shot the man, identified Sunday by the Cook County medical examiner’s office as 55-year-old Reginald Gildersleeve. Other details about Gildersleeve weren’t released.
No one else was hurt during the incident. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the customer, who has not been identified, will face charges. Guglielmi said preliminary details suggest the customer was not at fault, but that the case was under review by local prosecutors.
“We’re looking at it as a self-defense issue at this point,” he said.
Last month, a Michigan woman with a concealed carry license shot at shoplifters fleeing a Detroit-area Home Depot store, flattening a tire of their SUV. No one was hurt, and the suspected shoplifters were arrested several days later. The woman faces up to 90 days in jail after pleading no contest to a charge of reckless discharge of a firearm. Two other shootings in which citizens fired at lawbreakers or potential lawbreakers also happened in September in Michigan.
“It’s a slippery slope” when it comes to the question of whether citizens who are licensed to carry guns should intervene in dangerous situations, if at all, Guglielmi said.
“You have situations like this,” he said, referring to the foiled Chicago robbery. “And you have situations that end tragically. The department is not going to advocate for what people should or shouldn’t do.”
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