SHREWSBURY, Pa. (AP) — A trooper shot and wounded a man armed with a shotgun at a busy Pennsylvania Wal-Mart after the man robbed the pharmacy for prescription drugs, state police said.
State police received a call Thursday night from the Wal-Mart in Shrewsbury, saying the store about 40 miles south of the state capitol of Harrisburg had been robbed.
A trooper who was in the area responded and spotted the suspect as he was leaving the store.
Authorities said the trooper told the man to drop the shotgun. That’s when the man raised his weapon.
“The trooper was able to simultaneously push the shotgun barrel away while firing one round. The subject also fired a round as well,” Trooper Rob Hicks said.
The trooper’s bullet struck the man in the chest.
One witness, Roni Zentz, told the York Daily Record that she was sitting near the pharmacy when she saw a man yelling at pharmacy employees and cradling what appeared to be a shotgun in a black garbage bag.
She said she told someone to call security, and then heard two gunshots.
“I ran through the garden section,” Zentz told the newspaper.
She said the man was shot near the doorway.
State police said he was taken to hospital. His condition wasn’t immediately available.
There were no other injuries reported.
“It’s a very scary situation for everybody involved,” said Hicks. “I mean our trooper, the people who were in there shopping, the employees. A very nerve-racking situation. Thank God nobody else was hurt.”
The trooper is on administrative leave pending the results of an investigation into the shooting.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Justified!
It’s a sad day in America when your 2nd Amendment rights AND your right to treat a nasty battle with the flu are denied you. Dozens of NRA members strapped with assault weapons should descend upon Walmarts across Pennsylvania in protest of this travesty. Oh, wait, that’s already being planned? Nevermind…
Up until he tried to rob the pharmacy… he was a ‘good guy with a gun’.
He should employ the Bundy defense. He merely wanted to occupy the pharmacy, and as far as he could tell it was woefully underutilized, practically abandoned. Everything was fine until the authorities decided to get involved. If they’d merely left him alone no one was going to get hurt and nothing was going to get damaged.
Ambiguous headline with misspellings. -10 Good Lord. Edit, people.
“State Trooper shoots shotgun-wielding robber in Pennsylvania Walmart”