One man is dead and two are recovering after being shot by a gun store owner during a burglary of his business Thursday morning.
Stephen Bayazes Jr., 57, told officers that he and his wife were asleep in an apartment at the back of the business, Guns & Ammo Gunsmith, 522 Edgefield Road, shortly before 4 a.m. when he awoke after hearing a loud crash and the activation of a silent alarm.
Bayazes grabbed an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle and found three men loading guns into a van that had crashed through the side wall of the store.
After hearing the men yell to kill him, Bayazes shot one 30-round magazine of .223-caliber bullets before retreating to his bedroom to reload, he later told officers.
As he left the room, Bayazes saw two men drive away in the van.
K’Raven Aude Goodwin, 20, of Eastover, S.C., was wounded and left behind at the gun
shop.
Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton said Goodwin died of gunshot wounds shortly after arriving at Medical College of Georgia Hospital.
The two other suspects were found at Waffle House on Martintown Road, about three miles away. Investigators said the men, who had both been shot, stopped at the restaurant to seek help.
Eddie Stewart, 30, of Columbia, and Franklin Robinson, 27, of Gadsden, S.C., were taken to a hospital. Details on their injuries have not been released.
Aiken County sheriff’s Sgt. Jason Feemster said it appeared that all of the stolen merchandise was in the van.
Hours after the incident, a construction crew worked to repair the damaged wall. Parts of the ceiling and glass from display cases still littered the floor.
The store owner said it was not the first time the store has been a target.
In 2009, the store was burglarized.
Shortly afterward, Bayazes and his wife moved into an apartment in the back.
Bayazes was not injured.
Feemster said Bayazes was within his rights to use lethal force.
“If someone is breaking in your home or business, you have the right to defend yourself and not retreat,” the sergeant said.
A whole 30 round mag and 2 of 3 still vertical?
ReplyDeletePerhaps a shotgun might be a better choice for future engagements....
Yup, a Saiga 12 with 10/12 shells. I have the first mag loaded with double loads, 00 followed by a slug.
ReplyDeleteYep-A Siaga would have did the trick on them.
DeleteInitial contact rule of thumb is dump 1 mag as fast as you can then reload.. He should of had the reload on him.
ReplyDeleteShit...he did better than almost 95% of the police out there. They can't even hit what they shoot at.
Shit...he did better than almost 95% of the police out there. They can't even hit what they shoot at
ReplyDelete:)!
It's one thing finding the Mother "Load", it's another when it finds you?
ReplyDeleteOne out of three isn't bad considering how poorly .223 does on auto bodies.
ReplyDeleteK'Raven?
ReplyDeleteWTF sort of parent names their kid "Craven"??!! I bet she's surprised as hell that he turned out to be just that way, too...
Good Irish/Catholic folk - definitely just a bad seed from the best sort of family, I'm sure... He MUST have been special - 26 letters in our alphabet weren't enough to give him a suitable name - he needed punctuation too!
(Rolleyes)...
I DID notice however that his Momma followed the "Capitalize the first letter AND the first one following the goofy-arsed apostrophe" rule... That's a DEFINITE sign of intelligence and culture right there!
Quoth K'Raven - "NEBBA-MO'"??
Quoth K'Raven - "NEBBA-MO'"??
ReplyDeleteExcellent wit as usual.:)
I was feeling a bit ashamed of myself... It's not HIS fault his momma gave him an idiotic name, or raised him in a ghetto culture, or...or...or...
ReplyDeleteBUT it **IS** his fault that he made the choices he made that put him in a position to be on the receiving end of some righteous bullets.
I was a screwed up kid through no fault of my own, but I too made some choices that could have put me in prison or dead had I been caught. I thank G*D every day that he granted me the wisdom to realize that I had choices, and to begin making better ones before I brought any kids into the world (at least any that I know about)...
There isn't a person alive who doesn't have choices.
All that said, I was reviewing the comments at the linked site when I found a link to this story -- it appears the man is no saint himself:
http://www.edgefielddaily.com/b092006.html
Now, as another commenter said, stealing pine-straw vs crashing through the wall of a gun-shop and stealing all the guns to sell to gang-members isn't really a valid comparison, but still... I know that in SOME states the neighbor/tenant would have been 100% within their rights to shoot him dead if he was prowling around in the dark, stealing property. Of course we don't know the full story, but I find it hard to come up with any scenario that would justify him stealing from his tenants' business.
Further, we all know that such folk are almost NEVER caught the first time they do such a thing - the odds are that such behavior was a long-standing (often LIFE-long) habit.
That said, it WAS 2006 and since I couldn't find any follow-up story we don't know the outcome -- he could well have made amends and perhaps even sought help for whatever compelled him to act in such a way... We certainly have no evidence that he's done something like that again...
This though is why I preach **INTEGRITY** so often and so LOUDLY!!
**ALL** we need in a situation like this is for The Enemy to turn this into "Evil white man shoots black child for doing the same thing he himself got arrested for doing..."
Keep your hands clean, gentlemen!
If you've messed up in the past, resolve to never do so again, and if possible make amends to those you wronged, with interest and then some if at all possible!
Our hands *MUST* be clean!!
ONCE YOU'VE SOILED YOUR NAME YOU CAN ***NEVER*** GET IT CLEAN AGAIN!!