Clerk with gun thwarts suspect with BB-gun


July 15, 2013 at 8:36a.m.

Clerk with gun thwarts suspect with BB-gun

AMBRIDGE, Pa. (AP) — Police say a western Pennsylvania store clerk with a real gun thwarted a robbery by a suspect armed only with a BB-pistol.

Online court records don’t list an attorney for 42-year-old James Hayes, of Ambridge, who remained jailed today on a charge that he tried to rob Moh’s Market about 25 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

Police say surveillance video shows Hayes entered the Ambridge store about 3:45 p.m. Saturday and pointed his gun at the clerk, who responded by pulling a real gun on Hayes.

Police say Hayes ran away, but they caught him nearby a short time later when a woman yelled that a man with a gun had just run into her apartment.

Interim police Chief James Mann says Hayes “is one of the world’s dumbest, and luckiest to be alive, criminals.”