Police are still searching for suspects in a Hamilton robbery Saturday night that sent a clerk to the hospital after being shot under his arm.
Police responded at 9:30 p.m. Saturday to Kenton’s 12th Street Market, 761 S. 12th St. after two men tried to rob the store, according to Police Sgt. Ed Buns.
Grayson Matthews, 53, was the clerk on duty when the suspects entered the store. Matthews told police several gunshots were exchanged between himself and at least one of the men, according a police report. Matthews was shot under the arm and transported to University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
A short time later, a man arrived at an area hospital with a gunshot wound to the head. He was transferred to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. It was not clear how the man explained his wound to emergency room staff. Buns said Monday that the man was being investigated as a person of interest.
A hospital spokesperson was unable to comment Monday on Matthews’ condition. Morton Combs, the store’s owner and Matthews’ brother, also would not comment on his condition out of concern for his brother’s safety, but told this newspaper “he is doing better.”
Combs said he plans to make some changes to the store to increase safety after Saturday’s robbery.
“We will be putting a few cameras in,” he said. He said that if the robbers got away with any cash, “it was less than $30.”
He has owned the store for eight years, but said he never experienced any crime issues there until two years ago, and attributes the rise to the economic downturn.
“You drive around the area, you see the metal torn off of houses, the piping’s taken,” he said. “When people run out of things to steal, all you have left are robberies and home invasions.”
He attributes recent area robberies, including several at local Minnick's Drive Thrus in the past two weeks, to people who are "desperate for Christmas, cold and hungry."
Police continue to try to locate witnesses and the second suspect in Saturday’s robbery. Buns asked anyone with information to call police at 513-868-5811. Buns did not release a description of either suspect.
Combs said this wasn’t the first time his brother defended himself in the store.
In a similar situation, Matthews was working in the store alone at about 8:30 p.m. Sept. 24 when the clerk said a man came in wearing a plastic bag with eye holes poked out over his head.
The man, clutching what Matthews thought was a shotgun under his coat, demanded cash. Matthews handed over the money in the register. The suspect then demanded more.
Matthews eventually grabbed a .38-caliber revolver and shot the robbery suspect in the shoulder during that confrontation.
Police eventually found and arrested Curtis Jason Wright for aggravated robbery and resisting arrest after he fled the store injured.
“And then four months after that, my 82-year-old dad was stabbed twice at this location,” Combs told our news partner WCPO 9 On Your Side.
Jim Combs was stabbed in the market by a thief who took cash, according to Morton Combs. After being injured, Jim Combs chased the robber out of the store with a handgun, he said.