No charges filed in store shootings
Police say man, 70, who killed one suspect and wounded another who fled, acted in
self-defense
By Monica Scandlen
The Indianapolis Star
Saturday, May 20, 2000
The would-be robbers who tried to hold up a Near-Eastside mom-and-pop variety store
couldn't have
known it, but this time 70-year-old George Smith was packing.
Smith, a friend of the Shelbyville couple who have run JM Distributors for 21 years, was
shot outside the store the last time something like this happened in 1998. So he bought a
gun. Two years later, when intruders came again, Smith was ready.
The result: one suspect dead, another wounded.
"We'd be dead if it wasn't for George," said Judy Moore, 50, whose husband,
Jerry, was working outside the store when the holdup men walked in just before 5 p.m.
Thursday. "I think George was the real hero. He saved my life."
Back in the shop Friday, Jerry Moore didn't have the stomach to clean all the blood off
some of his store shelves. Some shelves he just had to toss.
"It's terrible, terrible, what happened," Moore, 57, said as he mopped the floor
of his general store in the 3700 block of Massachusetts Avenue. "We're just a little
family store."
But it's a store that Moore says had been visited by robbers twice before in the past two
years.
The last time, Smith was severely wounded and was laid up in a hospital for weeks. As a
frequent visitor to his friends' shop, the Moores say, he wanted to be ready the next
time. He was.
Corey Jermaine Price, 22, was shot in the head and died about midnight Thursday in
Methodist Hospital. Indianapolis police are still looking for Price's accomplice. Police
said Price and his 21-year-old alleged accomplice shared a home in the 1300 block of North
Chester Avenue.
Despite a sign on the store's door that read "Closed today," a steady stream of
people wanted to see how the Moores and Smith, their friend of 15 years, were doing.
"I just came by to see if you were OK," said a UPS delivery man who picked up a
candy bar at the shop.
As for Smith, he was in no mood to talk of heroics. Neither were the Moores.
"We feel so sad," Judy Moore said. "This young man was so desperate for
money, but who knows, he might have shot us both."
Homicide Detective Thomas Lehn and the Moores gave this account of what happened Thursday:
Smith was in the front of the store when Price and the other man entered just before 5
p.m. wearing women's
stockings over their heads. Judy Moore was in the office in the back. Price pointed a gun
at Smith and pushed him. Smith pretended to have a heart attack and fell to the floor.
Then Price went into the office and confronted Judy Moore. Price's accomplice stayed near
the cash register.
Terrified, Judy Moore began screaming. "I thought I was going to die, I really
did," she said.
Price seemed to be looking for something in the office. When he didn't find it, he went
back to the front of the store. He found Smith waiting. Price again pointed a gun at Smith
who by then had pulled out his own weapon. Smith fired at both men, hitting Price in the
head and his accomplice in the left shoulder, Lehn said. Price fell to the floor, and his
partner fled. Seconds later, Jerry Moore, who had heard the ruckus from outside, rushed
in.
While police responded to a 911 call from Judy Moore, the fleeing suspect showed up at
Winona Memorial Hospital, according to police. He arrived at 6:10 p.m., was briefly
treated for his wound and left at 6:25 p.m. -- before police, summoned by hospital staff,
could arrive.
Since then, the accomplice has been in contact with his family, Lehn said, and might have
left the Indianapolis area. Police intend to charge him with attempted robbery -- and also
felony murder because of the death of Price during the commission of a felony.
Smith will not be charged. Prosecutors and detectives have concluded the shooting was
justified self-defense, and Smith had a permit to carry the gun.
Today, JM Distributors will open its doors for business
once again.
