A 38-year-old Lincoln, Nebraska woman named Shelby J. Jones has been arrested and is reportedly facing charges after shooting an alleged shoplifter, Tilian J. Tilian, 22, while he was fleeing with two bottles of liquor.
The incident happened after the shoplifter fought with the Kwik Shop’s clerk and eventually tried to take off with his loot. The woman had a legal concealed carry license and only hit the man in the arm instead of killing him.
She initially tried to stop him from leaving the store by standing in his way, but he managed to slip past her and ran away.
It was then that Jones started shooting. Reports indicate that at least one of the shots went close past the store’s clerk, who had taken off chasing after the alleged thief himself. Authorities arrived shortly after and arrested the woman after reviewing security videos.
The woman was charged with first-degree assault, and it is not clear if she would lose her license as a result of the incident.
Tilian, who was brought to a hospital for the gunshot wound, is expected to face charges for the attempted theft. The young man has had run-ins with the law in the past, including a 2016 arrest for a shooting linked to a drug deal gone bad.
Authorities have pointed out that a concealed carry permit is not an automatic permission to shoot at people randomly, and there were specific training courses designed to outline the appropriate circumstances for discharging a weapon.
Most comments about the situation have been critical towards the woman, noting that she was not representing concealed carry holders in a very positive light, and needed to apply more restraint in her behavior if she wanted to legally own a firearm in the future.
However, it is possible that her entire license will be revoked after this incident.
The story sparked an intense debate about the Second Amendment, but most people agree that Jones should not have shot the man because there was no immediate danger to her or someone else’s life.
Moreover, she was close to turning a bad situation into a dangerous mess when she missed the store’s clerk by inches.
However, some are hoping that the store will step up and pay the woman’s legal fees because she was doing the right thing for them.
Jones’s defenders say that it should not be forgotten that Tilian was allegedly doing something awful.
