NEWTON COUNTY, GEORGIA — Two former employees of an Ingles grocery store orchestrated an attempted armed heist of the cash delivery. If you deal with cash on a regular basis, you’re going to need to make a bank run. The former employees found out when the manager made his routine run. One of them put on a mask, found a gun, and tried to hold up the manager. The manager drew his own gun and opened fire on the suspect. The suspect returned fire but only struck the manager’s truck.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the two suspects have been identified as 28-year-old Jahmar Smith and 29-year-old Lamont Castleberry. Both have been arrested in connection with the attempted robbery. Information is unclear whether one of them was hit by the manager’s bullets but both are presently in custody so it can be assumed neither suffered significant, life-threatening damage.
Police have also recovered articles of clothing, a gun, and an amount of cash consistent with what the manager reported.
Desperate men will do desperate things. One of those things is walking into a situation where you can safely assume the party you’re intending to rob is armed and willing to fight. Desperate men also make desperate mistakes. And those mistakes got these men caught.
As for the manager, if he ever needed a reminder as to why he carries a gun, this certainly would be it.
It’s funny. As concealed carriers and gun owners, there’s probably a good many of us that carry purely out of habit. By this point, putting a gun into a holster and putting the holster into the waistband is just somewhere near an added step between brushing teeth and tying shoelaces.
Then it happens. It’s the day you need to use that handgun to defend your life from an immediate threat. And all of the sudden, all those moments that passed where you just put the gun into a holster and put the holster into the waistband… They all tie together.
Defending our lives from fools that seek to take it is a daily choice. It begins with that additional step that ensures you carry every single day, everywhere you possibly can.
I certainly hope that day never arrives. If it should, I’ll be as ready as I’ll ever be. I hope you will as well. Make everyday carry a part of your daily routine.