While shootings and murders plague Chicago on a day-to-day basis, much of the rest of the state of Illinois doesn’t face such regular carnage. However, there are always those looking for an easy score, and Illinois, like other states, has its share of residents who prefer to get what they need by taking it from attest.
Thankfully, armed citizens sometimes stop such criminals in their tracks, as these four stories show.
An off-duty sheriff’s deputy used her handgun to stop a robbery of an Englewood, Ill., hair salon. Two young men entered Marquita’s Hair Salon about 1:40 in the afternoon and announced a robbery. The off-duty female deputy shot one of the robbers, sending the accomplice fleeing. The 17-year-old robber who was shot died at the scene. The deputy and others in the salon at the time were uninjured. (The Chicago Tribune, Englewood, Ill., 5/19/17)
A man in Illinois entered a convenience store with less than noble ideas on the night of March 15, and wound up getting more than he bargained for. The suspect in question brandished a gun barrel from beneath his white t-shirt and demanded that the store employees give him all of their money. One clerk sprung into action, retrieving a legally owned pistol and firing it upward at a 45-degree angle. The shot sent the would-be robber scrambling for the door and into an alley. Police are still investigating. (The State Journal-Register, Springfield, Ill., 3/17/12)
An Illinois homeowner and his wife woke up in the middle of the night to two would-be robbers breaking into their home. When the man approached the two masked assailants, they proceeded to hold him on the floor at gunpoint, choking him and demanding money. The man's wife then intervened, telling them that she had expensive jewelry upstairs. The two men went for the jewelry box and the homeowner went for his handgun. He shot and killed both men. An accomplice, who waited in a pickup outside, was later arrested. (The Associated Press, Indianola, Iowa, 09/23/09)
An Illinois State Penitentiary parolee who couldn't kick the crime habit paid with his life when he and 2 other men broke into the Sleepy Hollow, Ill., home of Dr. Roland Russell. As the gunmen were occupied tying Russell's wife and son to a bed, the doctor edged back to a table where he kept a loaded revolver. He fired 4 times, mortally wounding the parolee. The dying man's companions fled. (Chicago Daily News, 12/20/67)
