Store owner routs 4 robbers with his revolver

Originally ran here as:
"Convenience store owner exchanges gunfire with robbers 
One suspect may have been wounded, in hospital"
By ANDI ATWATER, News-Press.com

April 30, 2001

When Adnan Asad and his wife, Wafa, left Miami six months ago for a �quieter life� in Fort Myers, little did they know they�d end up in a shoot-out with armed robbers.

But at 10:45 p.m. Saturday, 15 minutes before closing, Asad said four masked men entered his 724 Ortiz Ave. convenience store and held a gun to his wife�s head.

She screamed.

�I was filling up the cooler, and I hear too much noise so I go to look at the front of my store,� Asad, 54, said Sunday. �They held my wife, choked her in the neck and put a gun between her eyes.�

Asad, who opened Penny Saver Supermarket about two months ago, said the gunmen saw him and shot at him with a machine-gun type of weapon.

�They fired at me. They wanted to kill me,� he said.

Asad fired back with a .357-caliber handgun he keeps in his pocket. He fired in the air at first, and then at the robbers, he said.

�I tried to avoid shooting at them, but this guy keeps shooting at me,� he said. �I think somebody got hit.�

Fort Myers police say that may be the case. While investigating the robbery, police got word that a man with gunshot wounds had been dropped off at Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center.

Investigators haven�t been able to interview Harvey Evans, 28, of Fort Myers, but police say he may be a suspect. Evans was listed in critical condition Sunday night.

�We can�t say for sure whether he was involved in the robbery,� police spokeswoman Kara Winton said. �We�re waiting to talk to him.�

Meanwhile, Asad and his wife refuse to be daunted by the violence.

Although Saturday�s robbery was the second one there in two months, Asad insists that the criminals are just a few bad seeds.

�The community is very good, all the people are very good � family people,� Asad said. �The problem is three or four junkie guys. They don�t want to work, they want to keep robbing.�

Anyone with information about this crime should call police at 334-4155 or anonymously to Crimestoppers at 332-5555.

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