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Photoman wrote:Yes the kid retreived a pistol and was moving to get the drop on the officer...who was patiently waiting in his car, gun in hand. The cop had plenty of time to leave.

Clerk Describes Shoot-Out

Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007 - 06:27 PM Updated: 07:06 PM

By Jenny Fisher
WCBD - TV 2

When you walk into the El Cheapo gas station on Dorchester Road, you can hear the clerk saying, "That's $2.49. Thank you. Honey, come on baby" as she gestures to the next person in line. Vernell Brown dishes out change, stands watch and greets customers all at the same time. Yet, she never expected to add a shooting to her flurry of activity.

Brown said, "I've never been in no shoot-out." Yet, there's a first time for everything and the store's surveillance camera caught it all. There's no audio, but Brown was there from the beginning, "I knew something was going to happen," she said. And after hitting the ground to avoid bullets, she was there in the end. Brown said, "They acted like they were at the ok corral somewhere."

After 15 years as a store clerk, you can expect straight-forward talk from Brown. She said, "I don't think he acted appropriately. It doesn't hurt to say excuse me." She's talking about Off-Duty Cop and Mayoral Candidate Omar Brown, when he reached for his items in front of Customer Antonio Rivers, who appears in green in the video.

The cashier said, "Omar Brown came back to the counter and reached over him. Rivers turned around and said, 'Man, you know, you bumped me.' Brown said almost rudely, 'I said I'm sorry.' Rivers replied, 'You didn't say nothing.' So, Rivers turned back around for me to wait on him and Omar Brown walked off and he turned around and said, 'You ain't seen bumped me yet.'"

As Officer Brown left, Clerk Brown, who's of no relation, said she tried to calm Rivers. The clerk said, "I asked him not to go out the door. He said F this so he was mad, and he went storming out the door." The clerk ran to a window to watch what happened next. She says she saw Officer Brown in his Mercedes, parked near the door. Brown said, "I'm like, why's this man sitting here. He sat there and it's almost like he sat there and waited."

The clerk says Rivers walked towards Brown's car with his arm at his side. The clerk said, "That's when his car came open and I was standing in the window watching everything and all I saw was a big, black gun."

The clerk says Officer Brown fired the first shot, but Rivers returned fire. It's a scene Brown says she'd rather see in the movies than on the job.

Officer Brown has told us he did not exchange words or bump Rivers in the store. Regardless, the solicitor says it's not so much words, but actions that matter. Scarlett Wilson reviewed the surveillance video and says it's clear Rivers rushed out of the store for a gun to solve the disagreement that took place inside the store.

22 Year-Old Rivers is in jail on charges of assault with intent to kill. 39 Year-Old Officer Brown is recovering from a bullet wound to the thigh and working on his campaign for mayor.

fm2 wrote:It looks to me like he had good awareness, re-gained the initiative (by gaining mobility and getting his own gun into action) and maintained a better position till the fight ended.