Shooting shakes a street, and a city

Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman has an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about a robbery gone very bad (for the robbers):

The killing outside Krick's Korner store wasn't the reason Adrienne Kohler walked into a gun shop in Philadelphia recently and bought a .380-caliber pistol. Kohler, 27, is six months pregnant. And her home had just been burglarized. But, like most others in the area, Kohler had an opinion about the pistol-packing civilian who first tried to detain, then shot and killed, two armed robbers after they held up the downtown convenience store recently.
"If he's being threatened," she said, "then by all means, you have to protect yourself."
The afternoon shooting stunned residents not for the violence but how it unfolded, and the mystery surrounding the shooter. As the two masked robbers fled Krick's store with money, cigarettes, and lottery tickets, they were confronted by the man, whom police describe only as a concerned citizen in his forties with a military background and a license to carry a concealed weapon. He ordered the bandits to stop. They pulled guns. He shot and killed both.
Berks County District Attorney John Adams reaffirmed that his office would bring no charges against the man, nor identify him out of concern for his safety. But the prosecutor said the man was justified to kill the would-be bandits. "How foolish of them to try to rob this business in broad daylight," Adams said in an interview.
Police identified the slain robbers as William Medina, 24, of Reading, and Robert "Bobby" DeCarr, 18, of nearby Muhlenberg Township.
Police said they had also arrested Alexander Garcia-Bialek, 21, of Fleetwood, whom they identified as the getaway driver. Garcia-Bialek will be charged with second-degree murder for the deaths of both gunmen, because they died in the commission of his felony, police said.
Like many smaller Northeastern cities, Reading has struggled to reinvent itself after the loss of industrial and manufacturing jobs. Two years ago, the Berks County seat of 88,000 drew a national spotlight as the poorest city in the nation. Census figures said 37 percent of its population lived in poverty. Despite that, Adams said the city's crime rate has dropped in the last five years.
Nestled at the corner of Ninth and Exeter Streets, Krick's had been a frequent target of robbers, neighbors said. Its owner had had enough. "He's been getting robbed. He's been asking people to stand around to make sure he does not get robbed," said Victor Velazquez Jr., 45. He said the shooting "ended a problem there, the owner's problem of getting robbed. It was justifiable."
"I probably would have done the same thing," said David Henke, 64, who lives near the corner store.
Barbara Quick, 72, a longtime Reading resident, said the robbers should have expected their actions would lead to serious consequences. "Drugs or robbing is only going to get you in prison or dead," she said.
The store is open again for business, though its owner, a man known by locals as Yogi, declined to talk about the incident or about the neighborhood man who foiled the robbery.
There were no obvious signs of the crime or killing. On the front window was a handwritten note with the message: God is watching you.
Nearby, friends and family members of DeCarr erected a makeshift vigil site with candles and posters sporting Rest in Peace and other handwritten messages.
In an interview, DeCarr's sister, Taylor DeCarr, twenty, said her brother was a "good kid" who "hung out with the wrong crowd." She said she had no idea why DeCarr robbed the store. "He did not have to kill him," she said of the shooter. "He could have shot him in the leg... They would have laid there till the cops got there. But he has to live with that, knowing he killed two kids."
Kohler said she drove by the crime scene on her way to the gun store. She said she knew DeCarr because he used to hang out in her boyfriend's neighborhood. She called him "a punk", but also said he was too young to be carrying out armed robberies.
Bill Pickup, owner of Gun Traders, was more diplomatic: "I was not there, so I cannot make a judgment," he said. "But he who lives by the sword shall perish by it."

Rico says that there's a Biblical saying you don't hear much these days...