Store owner's luck holds out as he fends
off 4th robbery try
By Pauline Repard
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 4, 2000
EL CAJON -- The gunman who demanded money from Dolour Abrahim
yesterday was lucky. Abrahim took a potshot at him and missed.
Back 25 years ago in Detroit, market owner Abrahim fired at a hold-up man
and killed him. Another time, he says, he took away a robber's gun and beat
him with it.
"I've been through three armed robberies before, and three times I was the
winner," Abrahim said in a telephone interview last night from his store, N &
K Deli Market Liquor on East Main Street.
"I'm used to this kind of life, and I expect (danger) at any time. I have a
bulletproof vest and two guns."
Yesterday about 3:15 p.m., a young man who had been browsing through
magazines brought two to the counter, then pulled a handgun -- an Uzi-style
machine-pistol, Abrahim told police.
"Before he could finish saying, 'Give me the money,' I grabbed his Uzi with
one hand, but he pulled it away," Abrahim said. "I went down on the floor and
grabbed my own gun and shot up. I couldn't see too good, so I missed."
The would-be robber ran out, jumped into a blue or silver sedan and drove
away on East Main Street, said police Lt. Jim Cunningham. Cunningham said
the gunman's description fits that of a robber who has hit all over the county.
Abrahim said he has owned small stores for 35 years, including 10 years in El
Cajon. N & K has never been robbed in its 15-year history, he said.
He said the man he killed in Detroit was suspected of several slayings.
"Police gave me thanks for it," Abrahim said.
He added that he was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with that robber.
"Today, the police said to me, 'You did very good,' " he said.
Abrahim said it has been a hard life, running small grocery stores, never
knowing whether a customer will try to rob him.
"Even in another business, though, there are no guarantees," he said. "There
are no guarantees in life."
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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
