Smail Gueddari was working in the back room of his store, Mazagan Urban Ware, around 8:30 p.m. Saturday when, suddenly, he heard his wife, who had been manning the cash register, screaming from the front of the shop.Gueddari rushed from the back room to find a robber, with the lower part of his face covered by a makeshift black bandanna, pointing a handgun at his wife and motioning with it for her to empty the storeÂ’s cash register. When the robber spotted Gueddari rounding the corner, he fired a shot at the store owner, but the bullet narrowly missed him and instead struck two mannequins before lodging into a nearby wall.
Gueddari said thatÂ’s when he pulled his firearm and shot back twice, hitting the robber once in the torso. The robber, identified Monday as 26-year-old Jeremy Scott Irvin of Fairfield, tried to escape with some of the stolen money after being wounded, but collapsed on the sidewalk just outside of the store located at 201 Main Street. Irvin would be pronounced dead shortly afterwards at Fort Hamilton Hospital.