Here's the details:
Pawn shop shootout baffles authorities
By Sheila Burke / Staff Writer
Carl D. Dowell went to the Household Pawn store at 848 North First St. to buy a gun last night, but a strange turn of events left him shot in the chest instead.
If the 64-year-old man lives, he may never be able to buy a handgun legally again.
Dowell was waiting for completion of a background check so he could purchase a weapon when he and another customer bumped into each other, police said. The bump between Dowell and Charles Robertson, 22, led to a fight in the store, Metro Homicide Detective Clifford Mann said.
Mann described what followed:
Dowell went outside the store and waited for the young man to come out. The two had words, and Dowell fired a gun at Robertson but missed.
The clerk at the store, Kenneth D. Pritchett, 23, who witnessed the shooting, got his own gun ready.
Dowell came back inside the shop, flashed his weapon and ordered everyone in the store onto the floor.
He aimed at Pritchett and pulled the trigger. The loaded gun somehow didn't fire, and that, Mann said, is when Pritchett shot Dowell.
Customers in the store thought they were being robbed. But Mann said robbery did not appear to be the motive, and police were not sure why Dowell had ordered the customers around or tried to shoot Pritchett.
"We don't know what happened to Mr. Dowell or what caused him to act this way," Mann said.
Investigators hope to be able to question Dowell if his condition improves. He was in surgery last night and listed in critical condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Dowell could face a variety of criminal charges, Mann said.
He said the weapon Dowell used last night was not the one he had bought earlier at the pawn shop.
No charges were filed last night against the store clerk, and it was uncertain whether any would be, Mann said.
