Police said the 14-year-old son of a pizzeria employee opened fire on one of three potential robbers after he started suffocating his mother in Philadelphia.
The police arrived at the store near Spring Garden before 10pm on Thursday and found a blood stain in the restaurant, extending to three blocks from the subway stations on Broad Street and Spring Garden Street.
The employee told the police that three men broke in and asked the cash register to withdraw money. She told them that she could not open the cash register because she needed a password.
According to police, other employees stated that one of the men tried to reach over the counter and then began to suffocate the woman, prompting her son to pull a pistol from under the counter and fire a shot in the face of the suspected assailant.
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Then all three of them ran away.
The policeman came to the subway station along the blood stains and found that the suspect was bleeding heavily. The police also found a large amount of cash in the suspect's pocket, but did not find a gun. Investigators are not sure whether the suspect carried weapons during the robbery, or whether he pretended to have weapons.
The suspect was taken to Jefferson Hospital in a critical condition.
The police said the same suspect was probably involved in another robbery, which occurred about five minutes ago at a pharmacy near the 400 block of North Broad Street, about two blocks from the pizzeria. In that incident, three men entered the store and robbed the pharmacy.
The police analyzed the surveillance video in the pharmacy and determined that one of the three suspects matches the description of the suspect who was shot while trying to rob the pizzeria.
The police are interviewing employees in the pizza restaurant who are cooperating with the investigation. They also said that during the robbery, customers in the store fled during the shooting. The police are trying to find them in order to talk to more potential witnesses.