American Shooting Victim Tells His Side of the Story

I saw an article in the paper a few days ago saying that an "American tourist" had been shot in a robbery attempt on Via Veneto at a cell phone store. I stopped by to visit him in the hospital after it happened to make sure that he had some kind of a local network of help and support. He has friends here who are looking after him and it turns out he has all the help he needs. He's been through surgery, moved from the ICU and is now in a regular room and starting his recovery. He gave me permission to tell his story but also asked me to protect his privacy. I had already heard some details of the assault from law enforcement sources and I wanted to know what had happened, how it went down. "I'm just a good old boy from Tennessee, and there's a line there that if you cross, well then you and me, we're going to be going at it," he said. He had plans to meet some friends for dinner later that evening. One of this Panamanian friends had lost a cell phone that day and he thought it would be a nice gesture to replace the phone. He was in the store and picking out what he wanted to buy when he heard a commotion. (more...)

The place was not crowded. "There was just me and like maybe only one other person in the store." He was concentrating on making his purchase, when "...all of a sudden there were all these young kids in there, and there was all this hollerin' and yelling. Of course I don't speak a whole lot of Spanish and I didn't understand what they were saying, and I didn't know what the heck was going on. Then I look up and I see this one young punk swinging a nickel-plated .38 all around. And I'm thinking 'what's that idiot doing?'"

"Well, it finally dawned on me that I was in the middle of a robbery. Then the next thing I know he was pointing that gun at at me!" He described the event as it happened moment by moment. He never had time to think about what he was going to do. "I just reacted. I've thought about it a lot since, and I think if I had to do it all over again I think I would have done the exact same thing, except maybe I would have done a better job of taking that young punk out." He could not understand what the criminals were yelling, and all he knew was that he had a gun in his face. "I only saw one gun," he said, and he rushed the guy with the gun.

"There's some things you just don't do to another person. That punk could have started shooting, or could have hurt someone else." When you look at the actual attack which was caught on tape by a security camera, his counter-attack had the effect of forcing the weapon off of center line. But the victim still ended up getting shot twice, once in the side and once in the leg. He is recovering from his wounds and should be fine. The shooter was captured seconds later by an off-duty police officer who happened to by walking by the store at the time.

"I love Panama, I've been coming down here for five years. In a couple of more years I'm going to be retiring here and living here full time. All I need is a little bass boat, a cooler full of beer, and I'm good to go." He really doesn't consider himself to be a "tourist" and is really more like a part-time resident who has plans to move here full time eventually.

"Panama has a bad reputation back home and a lot of people think I'm crazy for coming down here. And a lot of people might get the wrong impression from what happened to me. But in reality what happened to me could have happened anywhere in the world."

I asked for permission to tell his story. "Well, I think the story needs to be told, because I don't want people to get the wrong impression. Panama is a safe place for tourists but there are criminals anywhere you go."

He did ask me not to use his name and to protect his personal privacy. "I just want to fade back off of the radar and go back to living my life."

He wanted to make sure that the guy who shot him gets punished. Since the attack was caught on videotape and the 15 year-old criminal was captured by an off duty police officer right immediately after exiting the cell phone store with the smoking gun literally still in his hands, this is the definition of an open and shut case. "Panama needs to change their law and attitude toward juvenile offenders. The person who did this to me needs to be punished, and people need to be protected from people like him."

Unfortunately his juvenile offender will probably do just a couple of years in jail and they will be turned loose. Eventually he will probably commit a serious crime as an adult and then will be locked up for a long time. But as it stands right now the Panamanian law enforcement and correction system is not very good at either keeping kids from turning to crime or helping them restore their lives once they have. He is currently locked up in a holding cell in Rio Abajo, working on his master's degree in crime from other kids who are just like him.

So please be clear - this is one man who simply knows that it's not right for anyone to stick a gun in someone else's face. He was not resisting the robbery, trying to defend his Timex watch or anything like that. He didn't have time to think, and didn't understand whatever they were yelling anyway. He make a quick decision and says he would have done the same thing all over again, given the choice.

Nice to have met you, sir. I wish you a full and speedy recovery.

(Related Article: American "Tourist" Shot on Via Veneto)