A Philadelphia man was robbed of his cell phone, wallet and car at about 6:00 PM on a Monday last month by a pair of suspects. About two and half hours later, the same two attempted another robbery, but this time, the victim drew his gun and shot one of the suspects.
About twenty minutes later, a mid-20s man was found by police in the stolen vehicle eleven blocks away with two bullet wounds to his head. He was taken to a hospital in critical condition.
It’s not yet known if the man was involved in the vehicle theft, but he will be held as a suspect since he was in the stolen car. The second robbery suspect has also been taken into custody. It would appear that the second suspect drove away from the scene of the second robbery and then abandoned his partner.
There was no word on whether the second victim will face any charges for shooting one of the suspects. There was a handgun recovered at the scene.
For whatever reason, some criminals will attempt multiple crimes in a short period of time. Of course, each victim likely does not know what attacks may have occurred before they were targeted, so each one has to evaluate the threat they are faced with.
As with all criminal attacks, a deadly force response is only justified if the victim faces a true deadly force threat. That will be what the second victim will have to articulate to authorities as the investigation continues. Given the evidence suggests at least one of the robbery suspects was armed, that should be nearly a given.
