32-Year-Old Glendale Loss Prevention Worker Shoots and Kills Man Who Investigators Say Reached for a 9mm After Being Told to Leave Beauty Supply Store for Smoking Pills

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GLENDALE, AZ — A 32-year-old loss prevention employee at a beauty supply store shot and killed a man Wednesday evening after telling him and his girlfriend to leave, and investigators believe the man was reaching for a 9mm handgun when he was shot, according to Glendale police.

The shooting happened around 5 p.m. outside the store near 43rd Avenue and Bethany Home Road, as reported by AZFamily. Police say the employee confronted Edgar Perez Lopez, 33, and Lopez’s girlfriend, who were reportedly smoking pills, and told the couple to leave. That turned into a confrontation between the three.

Investigators believe Lopez reached for a firearm. The employee fired. Lopez was hit. He was rushed to the hospital and later died.

Police say Lopez had a 9mm handgun, and officers recovered suspected drugs at the scene.

There is not much more to this one yet, and I am not going to dress it up. A man was getting high outside a store, got told to move along, and police say he had a 9mm on him and went for it. Smoking pills in a parking lot is a bad night. Reaching for a gun when a loss prevention worker tells you to leave is how a bad night becomes a fatal one. Nothing about a shoplifting-prevention conversation requires anyone to die, and the person who introduced a firearm into it is the one who made that outcome possible.

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Investigators initially said the employee was in custody, and it is unclear whether he will be charged. The employee’s “actions remain under investigation, and the circumstances surrounding the shooting will be evaluated as part of the investigative process,” Glendale police said in a statement. Police are still working to determine whether Lopez had the gun in his hand when he was shot. Deadly force is justified only against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, and a man going for a gun during a confrontation can meet that standard before the muzzle ever comes up. That is my framing, not the department’s. What police describe is a belief that Lopez reached for a firearm. Whether that holds up, and whether the employee faces charges, is a call for investigators and prosecutors, and no charging decision has been announced.

Video from the scene showed crime tape blocking off a corner of the shopping center that includes a barber shop and a bicycle store. Police said there is no threat to the public and the shooting appears to be an isolated incident. The employee has not been identified.

Read the original story: 32-Year-Old Glendale Loss Prevention Worker Shoots and Kills Man Who Investigators Say Reached for a 9mm After Being Told to Leave Beauty Supply Store for Smoking Pills