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Store owner delivers message after fatal shooting
'Make your own money; quit trying to take mine,' he tells would-be robbers
By SAEED AHMED
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
The message might not have sunk in the first time
J.C. Adams killed a man who tried to rob his convenience store.
The 74-year-old store owner hopes it will this time:
"Go to work and make your own money. Quit trying to take mine."
In a virtual repeat of a scenario played out less than three years ago, Adams shot and killed an armed man Thursday night who allegedly tried to hold up the store Adams has owned for a quarter century.
Police said a second accomplice was wounded in the holdup at the Pac-A-Sac store on Lawrenceville Highway.
A female accomplice escaped injuries and was taken into custody.
The suspects were shot while inside the store, police said. They fled and collapsed on the street outside.
Adams, who has owned the small grocery store just inside I-285 for 26 years, said he was in a rear office watching television when he saw the robbers on his store monitor about 10:45 p.m.
The Korean War veteran grabbed his 12-gauge shotgun with one hand. Using his other to guide his walker, he walked to the front of the store and fired a single shot.
"I got two in one shot, that's what the police told me," Adams said.
Police Lt. James Conroy said Adams fired once and hit both the suspects. He also said police found some store items next to the suspects but he would not describe them.
Early Friday morning, police identified the wounded man as Leonard Glover, 19, of Clarkston. He was listed in stable condition at an area hospital.
The woman was identified as Tammy Crystal Jones, 17, also of Clarkston.
The name of the person who was killed was withheld until relatives could be notified.
About three years ago, another would be-robber, Leroy Holt, 32, of Decatur, was killed by a shot in the chest from Adams when Holt and an accomplice tried to hold up the store.
At the time, Holt was on probation for a drug conviction and had served nearly three years in prison for armed robbery.
Adams, who homself was shot inthe buttocks, was back at work and granting interviews 11 hours after the May 30, 2000, incident.
"I don't hurt," Adams said at the time, in his tiny office in the rear of the store. "The shot was through and through, and they gave me a pain shot."
"J.C., you need to retire," a customer urged Adams in the aftermath of the 2000 robbery.
Not yet, he responded. "I think I've got 10,000 more good miles in me."
Adams was not charged in the 2000 incident.
Police have not said if they intend to file charges in the Thursday night robbery.
According to Georgia law, a person is justified in threatening to use force -- or using it -- to defend himself or another person from a third person's "imminent use of unlawful force."
A person also is justified in using force to stop another from committing a forceable felony, such as a rape or armed robbery.
By Adam's estimation, the store has been robbed dozens of times since it opened. The killings, he said, do not rattle him.
"Your heart kind of drops, but you have to stand your ground," he said.
Family and friends who rushed to check on Adams after the Thursday night shooting said they have urged him numerous times to sell the store, but he would not listen.
"We have just learned to live with the fear," said daughter Jan Malone of Decatur.
Adams' wife of 44 years, Mary, said that, during one of the robberies, a man held her husband at gunpoint and demanded his money and his wedding ring.
"The man kept saying 'hurry up, old man, hurry up,'" she said. "He told the man, 'if you don't stop calling me old, I'm going to kill you."
When the alleged robber left the store, Adams grabbed a pistol, followed him out and fired a shot in the air.
The man dropped the bag and ran. Adams reached down and pulled out the ring.
"Many times these guys think that because he's old, he's weak," said Keith Hutcheson, who has known Adams for 15 years. "You don't mess with him.
"And when you do, you pay the price."
