Results tagged “selfdefense”

After Harlem store owner Charles "Gus" Augusto shot at armed robbers who were pistol-whipping his employee, killing two of the suspects, the 72-year-old (pictured) lamented, saying, "I would have been happy if they'd all run out the door. I'm sick to my stomach over it," and "This is terrible. This is really awful." The NY Times revisited some store owners who have similar feelings: "A few owners said the shootings in their pasts, even those from decades ago, were still too painful to talk about. One, who would speak only anonymously, said, 'I’ve been trying to forget about this since it happened.'" But one, Youssouf Drame, was open about not regretting his decision. Last fall, Drame managed to wrest away a gun from robbers at his electronics store in Brooklyn (the robbers pistol-whipped one of Drame's employees) and killed two of the four robbers. He was shot seven times and showed the Times his scars, saying if he was confronted again, "I’d do worse...I worked so hard, and they wanted to take what is mine." And of the Harlem shooting at Augusto's store, Drame said, "How are you going to rob an old man like that?"

John Katehis, the 16-year-old accused of fatally stabbing radio newsman George Weber 50 times, has pleaded not guilty in court today. Even though Katehis confessed to meeting Weber via Craigslist and heading to Weber's home, where they drank and did cocaine, his lawyer Jeffrey Schwartz blamed Weber, "[Weber] went by the name of SmotherBoy on Craigslist, which is a way he either lured or attemtped to lure other underage boys into his lair, supplied them, or at least Mr. Katehis, with drugs and alcohol, attempted to get him to do some sado-machochistic sex to him and the situation got out of control." Schwartz also told the Daily News, "He thought Weber was going after him and there was a struggle for the knife. There was a big struggle... [Katehis] was on cocaine for the first time, he wigged out. There's more to this case than everyone thinks. This kid was defending himself against a sexual predator."

The second man arrested in the hate crime killing of an Ecuadorian immigrant is presenting a very different story of the fight that led to the death of Jose Sucuzhaynay. The accusations have been that the two murder suspects, Keith Phoenix and Hakim Scott, targeted the late Jose Sucuzhaynay and his brother because the pair of brothers appeared to be gay. Instead, Phoenix says that one of the Sucuzhaynays provoked the fight by kicking in the door of the car that Phoenix was driving. He says that as the fight escalated, Sucuzhaynay reached into his waistband for what Phoenix thought was a weapon, inciting the fatal beating.

The Brooklyn shopkeeper, who, while being held up by armed robbers, managed to wrestle away a gun and fatally shoot two of the men earlier this week, told his wife, "He's sorry he could not take out everybody." The Daily News reports that Youssouf Drame, who was shot in the stomach, is still in critical but stable condition. His wife says he wants the store to reopen and also recounted what he told her about the incident, "Once he saw them pistol-whip his employee, he knew they were going to kill them, too. So he fought back and he did not care if he was being shot at. He knew they were going to rob and kill them and he was not going to go down like that." She added, "It has nothing to do with being brave... It has to do with going on with life." The police are still looking for two additional suspects.

A few more details in the attempted robbery turned shoot-out in Crown Heights. The store's owner, Youssouf Drame, was unarmed; the NY Times reports he "wrested a gun away from one of the men and fatally shot two of them." Employee Drummond Bignott, who was pistol-whipped (Drame was also pistol-whipped but grabbed the man's gun), told Newsday, "He took the guy's gun. Everyone started shooting. He saved my life." Drame, who was shot in the stomach and remains in critical condition, will probably not face charges since he acted in self-defense; his wife said, "Nothing surprises me about what he did. He's a brave man - the gun would not scare him." Two other suspects in the robbery are still at large.

Stephen Sakai, the bouncer on trial for shooting four clubgoers, killing one, claims he was defending himself that night in 2006. The Daily News reports that he told the court that one of the men had a gun, "If I didn't use the gun I'm dead. If I do use the gun I get to see tomorrow." He also said of fatally shooting the wounded man's brother, claiming the brother was reaching for the gun, "I'm not waiting for this person to get up - I pull the trigger. That guy gets up, he's shooting me." However, prosecutors say he's a cold-blooded killer. And when police arrested him, they realized he was wanted for earlier murders. He was tried for those crimes last year (he testified with a fake Asian accent and jury found him guilty of two murders. He was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison.

Bronx resident Diogenes Angeles showed three young men he's no shrinking grandfather: The Daily News reports that Angeles "dusted off his karate skills" yesterday when "Eugene Sanchez, 19, Rakeem Johnson, 23, and Jason Lopez, 25, taunted and then attacked" him. The 57-year-old managed to defend himself and the attackers ran away, only to be arrested by the police later and charged with robbery, possession of stolen property and resisting arrest (Sanchez also bit a cop's hand; the News has a picture of the perps, one of whom is wearing seriously baggy jeans). Angeles learned karate when he was a teen and has practiced every day, explaining, "We live in a city where you leave your house and you don't know what's going to happen. You need to be able to defend yourself."

Police are searching for a man in his 30's who broke into a West Village apartment wielding a knife, only to be driven off by the occupant's furious response. The Post spoke to the resident, Jennifer LaPierre, a 41-year-old writer who lives in a basement apartment on West 11th Street. The article makes clear that when she's not pounding the keyboard, she likes to pump iron and work out at a nearby gym.