Gary, Ind., Fast Food Worker's Concealed Gun Helps Foil Robbery
GARY, Ind. (CBS) -- The Indiana law that allows licensed residents to carry concealed firearms has apparently helped break up what could have been a bloody robbery.
As CBS2's Mike Parker reports, Gary police said two armed men wearing ski masks burst into the Rally's at Broadway and Washington on Jan. 11 and tried to rob the place.
During the attempted heist, one of the employees pulled out a gun he was carrying and shot one of the would-be thieves. They both took off and one of them collapsed and died outside the restaurant.
Gary Police Detective Del Stout said the robbers picked the wrong place for a stickup.
"They certainly did. It was their bad luck that day," Stout said.
The body of 24-year-old Marcus Patillo of Merrillville was found later in a vacant lot behind the restaurant. The other robber got away.
It appears the employee who shot Patillo won't face charges. Concealed carrying of firearms is legal in Indiana.
Stout said, "While we don't encourage people being robbed to take the law into their own hands, it did work out in this instance. There is no telling what might have happened if the employee had not had a weapon."
Three weeks ago, a gunman and an accomplice robbed and roughed up the owner of a Northwest Side pizzeria in Chicago. It was a brutal incident that was caught on surveillance video. Although concealed carry in Illinois is illegal, it is legal for a business owner to keep a registered firearm – not on his person, but on the premises.
Is that victim now mulling it over?
John Gagliardi Jr., whose father was terrorized, said his dad "doesn't like guns. He feels that he's from the 50's or 1960's, from the old days when you don't have to carry a gun."
However, Gagliardi added, "I would probably have one, yes , for safety reasons but I don't know if I could use one."
One suspect in that pizzeria robbery has been arrested, charged with assisting the gunman in that $800 robbery. He's been identified in a lineup by the victims.
