California

Caught on Camera: Liquor Store Shootout Breaks Out Over Single Cigarette

Bullets start flying when an angry customer and a clerk argue over the sale of a single cigarette

A dispute over a single cigarette escalated to a shootout between a store clerk and a customer at a Victorville, California, liquor store, but no one inside the business was hurt.

The gunfight, caught on a surveillance camera, began Tuesday evening with the customer strolling in and asking to buy just one cigarette.

"I told him we don't sell them here," said the clerk, Rodney Abdelkadous.

That's when Abdelkadous says the customer became hostile.

"He reach out for his gun and said, 'Would you sell me one now?'" Abdelkadous said.

Video shows the customer pulling a gun from his waistband and Abdelkadous reaching for his firearm from under the counter. Bullets start flying.

"He ran out, started shooting," Abdelkadous said. "I was ducking under the register."

The clerk's girlfriend was next to him during the gun battle, which lasted just a few seconds.

"I was afraid that he would shoot through the window and hit her," Abdelkadous said.

He and his girlfriend were not hurt. The gunman took off in a black, older model Mercedes. It's unclear if he was struck.

Abdelkadous says he didn't realize how dangerous it was until he saw the aftermath.

"It hit afterwards, after seeing the bullet holes," he said. "It could have been my last day."

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