SAN ANGELO, Texas — A
man armed with a handgun attempting to rob a San Angelo jewelry store was shot and killed by a store employee on Wednesday, police said.
Gunshots were reported at Cano's Diamonds, 2705 Sherwood Way, about 1 p.m., said Lt. David Howard, a San Angelo Police Department public affairs spokesman.
"Police responded to the scene and found the individual deceased inside the store," Howard said. "It appears it was an armed robbery gone wrong."
Police said the man, who was not identified, died in the store. No other people were injured or harmed, and the employee and the owner were the only people in the store other than the robber.
The employee was "a little shaken, and understandably so," Howard said.
Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Fred Buck said the man looked to be a "youngish" Hispanic male.
"When they get done with their investigation ... we will contact our transport and have and the person sent to Tarrant County Medical Examiner for an autopsy," Buck said.
The store is across the street from Bratton's Bargain City furniture store, between an optometrist and a watch repair and battery shop. Police Wednesday afternoon cordoned off the jewelry store and part of an adjacent parking lot, more than 100 feet of street frontage.
Motorists slowed as they drove by, calling out questions to bystanders. Sherwood Way had been reduced to three lanes because of construction in the area.
Sandy Ontiveros and her daughter Rosemary Leal were at Lee Middle School dropping off gym clothes for Leal's daughter when they noticed something was wrong at Cano's store.
"We were here at the school and she heard (someone's) screams," Ontiveros said.
She said she and her husband do business with another man in the same building repairing watches. She and her daughter stopped by and parked in Bratton's Bargain City parking lot on two occasions to see if they could see the shop owner and make sure he was OK.
"There's been a lot of robberies," Ontiveros said, mentioning a recent widely publicized diamond theft at another San Angelo jeweler as an example. It was the security camera image of a Hispanic man broadcast from that theft earlier this month that popped in her head when she learned of Wednesday's shooting, she said.
Other jewelers along the Sherwood Way corridor, such as Golden Phoenix Jewelry to the west and Holland Jewelry Co. farther down Beauregard Avenue, expressed concern about the heists. Both were saddened that the robber in Wednesday's attempt died but were thankful nothing happened to store personnel.
John Peterson, owner of Golden Phoenix, said he thinks part of the problem is that with the economy down, "people are getting hungry and desperate."
Peterson and Bill Holland, owner of Holland Jewelry, said security consciousness is part of the nature of the business.
"But it makes us uncomfortable when anything like this happens," Peterson said. "You can't help but be concerned over it."
At times when something of this magnitude happens, Holland said, his store typically redoubles its efforts in checking security systems and making sure employees follow safety procedure.
"The jewelers tend to communicate with each other when anything suspicious or bad's going on," he said. "We've been in contact with others in town. It's a terrible thing and we're certainly thankful nobody in the store was injured."
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