Early Wednesday morning, a man attempted to rob the Good Family Pharmacy in Pinch, West Virginia. Little did he realize that the pharmacist was packing more than pills.
Don Radcliff, a pharmacist at the Good Family Pharmacy, joked to a man that entered the establishment with a bandana over his face, “Are you here to rob me?”
As soon as he asked the question, the would be robber pulled out a gun, but Radcliff, having sized up the man had already begun to reach for his own gun under his white pharmacy coat.
His quick thinking and shooting not only took out the robber, but one shot jammed the robber’s gun in the process.
Radcliff stepped in front of a customer and fired three shots. According to the West Virginia Gazette:
The first hit the suspect’s chest, the second hit his gun, jamming it, and the third hit the suspect’s abdomen. One employee said the suspect was trying to shoot back during that time.
The whole incident happened within a matter of seconds.
Following the shooting, Radcliff, along with a pharmacy intern, attempted to provide medical aid to the robber. During the process, he kept asking the robber, “Why did you make me do this?” and “I didn’t mean to do this.”
The man, later identified as Terry Gillenwater, 25, of Quick, was eventually transported to the hospital and taken into surgery, but was later pronounced dead.
Good Family Pharmacy employee Chris Monk said that after the incident the cleanup took a minimal amount of time and they were back to work. However, owner Patrick Good, who took over for Radcliff so that he could go home, said that Radcliff was deeply disturbed after finding out that the man he shot had died.
“He’s a lot more tore up now that he found out the guy died,” Good said.
While Mr. Radcliff will have to deal with the afterthoughts of his actions, those around the pharmacy support him.
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” Frank Frye, who owns a body shop across the street, said. “Hopefully word gets around that this happened. Maybe there won’t be anybody else try the same thing.”
“More power to him. One less thief, in my opinion,” neighbor Gale Hershberger said. “If he came to my house, I’d do the same thing.”
According to Kanawha County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Sean Snuffer, no charges will be filed against Radcliff, but the case will be sent to the office of Kanawha Prosecuting Attorney Chuck Miller for review.
Good indicated that the business is well armed.
“You can’t just be passive when people come in trying to rob you. I mean, you work all of your life for stuff like this, and you can’t just let someone take it away from you,” Good told WSAZ.
Good believes in self-defense and defending one’s property and told WSAZ that he doesn’t have a problem with his employees arming themselves at his business.
“You’re always prepared. We carry all the time,” Good added. “You always have that in the back of your mind. You just hope and pray that you never have to act on it.”
This is just one more incident where lives were probably saved due to a law abiding gun owner’s quick actions. Well done Mr. Radcliff and well done to Mr. Good for not interfering with the duty and responsibility of Mr. Radcliff in his place of business to be a protector of others.
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