Clerk Turns Tables On Robber

An armed robber stormed Fair Haven’s Babe’s Market last year and cleaned out the cash register. Another showed up Tuesday night — but this time Karar Jawad was armed and ready.

Police said Jawad, who carries a state pistol permit, shot a masked alleged robber. The incident took place at 10:19 p.m. The robber and an alleged accomplice fled; the robber ended up in the hospital. Wednesday night police went to the hospital, put the man under arrest, then had him kept under 24-hour guard, according to Lt. Julie Johnson, head of the police department’s Major Crimes Unit.

In an interview at Babe’s on Ferry Street Wednesday evening, Karar said he fired two shots. (Reader’s note: A video of the incident was removed at the clerk’s request.). The 22-year-old convenience store clerk recently took over ownership of the market from his father.

His father was the one was got robbed last year.

“The time they robbed my dad, that’s the time I knew I had to get myself something to protect myself,” Karar said. So Karar got his .40 Glock and permit in April.

Babe’s Market, a small convenience store, stacks mostly snack foods and canned goods. It has two aisles of goods; a few coolers and refrigerators line the walls.

From behind the counter, Karar recalled his brush with the alleged robber.

Around 10:18 p.m. Tuesday, Jawad was behind the counter with his girlfriend and some friends. Everyone was chatting and having a good time, he said.

Suddenly, two young men — one of them armed — dressed all in black stormed in. They yelled at everyone to get on the ground. One of them pointed a gun to the head of the lone customer in line and demanded his money.

“That’s all the money he had,” Jawad remembered of the customer. ​“It was like $66.” He said the customer was in line to buy half a gallon of milk.

At that point, Jawad was the only one standing; everyone else was on the floor. The armed man turned to Jawad and pointed the gun at his chest.

“I didn’t think. My head was blank for a second,” he recalled.

But his mind started to work again as the robber asked for more money. That’s when Jawad pretended to reach for his billfold. He instead took out his gun and held it behind his back for a second.

His girlfriend saw him.

“Don’t do it! Don’t it!” she cried.

He did anyway, ​“because I had to,” Jawad said. ​“The gun was pointed at my chest.”

He had never shot anyone before.

The armed robber stumbled to a corner of the store, fell to the ground, picked himself up and started running. Jawad shot him again as he was leaving the store.

Both the robbers jumped into a car that was waiting outside with another driver, and the three sped away, Jawad said.

After Jawad got his pistol and permit in April he posted signs in front of the counter to inform customers — and anyone up to no good — that someone who works at the store had a gun.

“I guess he didn’t read it well,” Jawad said, chuckling.

According to Lt. Johnson, the robber showed up later at a hospital reporting a gunshot wound in the area of his shoulder and chest. He claimed he had been shot on Ashmun Street, across town in the Dixwell neighborhood.

Detective David Zaweski (a onetime Independent Cop of the Week) led an investigation into the shooting. But Wednesday night he was able to piece together the evidence to charge the alleged robber, an 18-year-old New Haven man, Johnson said.

A search of the state’s judicial database turned up no previous convictions or pending criminal charges against the arrestee.

Johnson confirmed Jawad has a permit for his gun. Even if he hadn’t had one, a storeowner or clerk is allowed to keep one at work and use it if his life is threatened, Johnson said. Jawad definitely had reason to fear for his life, Johnson said, and he had a legal right to fire at the alleged robber. As a result, police did not charge him with a crime.