Key Takeaways
- A shooting at a Harris Teeter supermarket on NC 54 West in Durham occurred Sunday morning.
- Both a security guard and a shoplifting suspect are facing charges following the shooting, police say.
- Durham police have not publicly identified either man or released the specific charges against them.
- Charges are allegations, and neither man has been convicted of anything.
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DURHAM, NC — A security guard and a shoplifting suspect are both facing charges after a shooting at a Harris Teeter supermarket in Durham, police say.
The shooting happened Sunday morning at the store on NC 54 West, as reported by CBS 17. Police have not publicly identified either man, and the specific charges against each of them have not been released.
That both parties are charged is the detail that matters here. A shoplifting call is a property crime, and property is never the justification for pulling a trigger. Deadly force is reserved for an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm to a person, and nothing less. Whether that line was crossed in the Harris Teeter parking area is exactly what investigators and prosecutors will be sorting out.
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Anyone who works retail security carries that calculation on every shift. The job is observation, documentation, and calling police. A guard who stays in that lane is a witness. A guard who puts hands on someone over merchandise becomes a participant in a fight, and from that point prosecutors look at who started the physical contact and whether anything that followed was proportional to the danger each man was actually in.
Charges are allegations. Neither man has been convicted of anything, and the district attorney will make the final call on what, if anything, goes forward.
