A masked and gloved man entered Smokers Town, a vape shop in Florence, South Carolina, armed with a handgun and began loading money into a bag. A store employee drew a firearm and shot the suspect, Raheem Raykwain Brantley, 23, who fled and was found dead behind the business.
Police have filed no charges against the employee. The Florence Police Department and the county coroner’s office are investigating, with prosecutors responsible for determining whether the shooting was legally justified.
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FLORENCE, SC — A store employee at a Florence vape shop grabbed a handgun and fired multiple rounds at a masked man who police say walked in armed and began loading money into a bag. The man ran and was found dead behind the business.
Officers were sent to a reported armed robbery at Smokers Town on Woody Jones Boulevard at about 10:15 p.m., and while they were still en route they were told the suspect had been shot by an employee, as reported by WBTW. The Florence County Coroner’s Office identified the man as Raheem Raykwain Brantley, 23, of Florence. Coroner Keith von Lutcken released the identification.
Police said their preliminary investigation indicates Brantley entered the business wearing a mask and gloves and carrying a gun. As he was trying to put money into a bag, the employee grabbed a handgun and fired multiple rounds.
Brantley ran out of the store. Officers found him a short time later lying in a grassy area behind the business. He had a handgun with him.
Drawing on a man who already has a gun in his hand is the hardest thing an armed citizen can be asked to do. Pulling a trigger is always faster than clearing a holster or reaching for a gun under a counter. That’s what drawing from the drop means, and it is why so much defensive training is about timing rather than speed. Moving first, at the wrong moment, may get you killed.
The employee did not move first. Police say Brantley was occupied with the money and the bag when the employee grabbed a handgun and fired. That is a window, and in a situation like this it may be the only one a person gets. He saw it and he took it. Good for him.
Nobody will ever know whether Brantley was there only for the cash or whether he planned to shoot the employee once the bag was full. A masked, gloved man standing inside a small shop with a gun in his hand is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, and the person on the other side of the counter does not get to wait and find out which kind of robbery this was.
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The employee has not been identified, and police said no charges have been filed against him at this time. Florence police and the coroner’s office are both still investigating, and the final call on whether the shooting was justified rests with prosecutors, not with police or with me. Everything police have described about how Brantley entered the store is a preliminary account.
That employee was behind a counter at night, in a business that had already been chosen as a target, with an armed man a few feet away. He did not have the option of distance, and he did not have the option of waiting to learn what the gun was for.
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