When officers responded to an emergency call from a Walgreens store in Phoenix, Ariz., Sgt. Jonathan Howard arrived to find “a scene that was full of chaos.”
Police found a dozen employees and customers hiding from an armed robber who was still in the store—but who was critically injured. Investigators discovered the suspect had pulled a gun, jumped the pharmacy counter and began demanding oxycodone. But a customer quickly pulled his own firearm and shot the suspect, ending the robbery but starting the standoff.
Once officers removed everyone from the store, they found the suspect still clutching his gun, but obviously wounded. Minutes later, a police dog pulled the man from his gun and he was apprehended. Officers then administered emergency CPR, but the man died at the scene.
Janice Gordon-Caddy, a customer also in the store, told reporters, “It probably would have been much worse if there hadn’t been a customer in there armed.”
