Armed liquor store clerk thwarts robbery

MARIONVILLE, Mo. -- Jon Lewis Alexander spent 30 years in the military, was a prison guard, private investigator and once helped extradite federal prisoners.

With that background, Alexander, 54, was unimpressed when a man walked into a liquor store in southwest Missouri where he worked, pulled out a handgun and demanded money.

Store video shows Alexander calmly pushed the gun aside and drew his Walther PPX 9 mm handgun, pointed it at the would-be robber's mouth and watched as the man backed away and ran out of the store. No shots were fired and no one was injured in the Sunday night incident at the Beer 30 store in Marionville. Police were still looking for the man Wednesday.

"One of the policemen told me later, 'You're a lucky man,'" Alexander told the Springfield News-Leader. "I said, 'I think he [the robber] is a little luckier than I am.'"

Alexander said he didn't fire because the man didn't have a chance to point the weapon at him.

"If I had seen the actual barrel of the gun, I would have pulled the trigger," he said. "My life wasn't threatened."

Alexander was able to give police a detailed description of the gunman and police swabbed his pistol for DNA.

Jeannine Dawson said she doesn't generally allow employees to be armed at the two stores she owns with her husband, Max, but she made an exception for Alexander.

"From what I have known of Jon, that handgun is kind of a part of him, like my handbag is to me," she said.

Dawson said employees at the two stores are told to hand over money to robbers and stay safe and this event won't make her change her mind.

"I don't know what I would say if someone else asked to carry a gun," she said. "Jon's the exception."

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Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com

Pertinent address:

Marionville, Mo.