Store Clerk, 73, Staves Off Trouble With Gun

DEERFIELD TWP. (WWJ/AP) - A 73-year-old store clerk in Michigan has staved off trouble at his store for the second time in recent years by pulling a gun.

Venture Corners clerk Fred Price said he pulled his weapon Monday on a man he thought had a gun.

According to authorities, an apparently drunken man entered the store in Livingston County's rural Deerfield Township and demanded beer. Price said the man wouldn't leave the property so he pulled a gun.

"I told him to get the hell out," Price told the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus. "He went back on my porch and was sitting there with what I thought was a real gun. I called the police before that to let them know a man in the store had a gun. I pulled my gun."

Police arrested the would-be customer at the store about 45 miles northwest of Detroit for disorderly conduct and trespassing. Sheriff Bob Bezotte said the 49-year-old man "never pulled the gun out of his waistband" but showed his weapon to the clerk.

The gun was initially believed to be a 9 mm handgun, but turned out to be a BB gun, the sheriff said

In 2010, a masked man walked into the store demanding money. Price, who was 70 years old at the time, knocked what turned out to be a starter pistol out of the man's hand and shot at a getaway car. The man wasn't shot, but the would-be robber was later arrested, convicted and sentenced.

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