A US pharmacy employee who shot and wounded a pregnant woman he suspected of shoplifting said he acted in self-defence after being pepper-sprayed, Nashville police said Thursday.
A Walgreens team leader followed two women to a vehicle in the parking lot Wednesday evening after watching them leave the store without paying for items, police said in a statement. He said he was recording the women on his cellphone and that he made his way to the rear side of a vehicle where they were placing the items in the trunk. One of the women then sprayed him with pepper spray, he told police.
The man said he then fired a semi-automatic pistol because he was “in fear and didn’t know if they were armed,” the statement said.
The women fled in the car, and the employee went back into the store and called 911.