Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Hickory, North Carolina

From the Charlotte Observer of May 16, 2006
Man shot as robbers try to loot poker game

A Hickory man was in stable condition Monday after an early-morning poker game over the weekend ended with an exchange of gunfire, police said. Carl Edward Merritt, 66, told police the shooting happened while he was playing cards with several other men around 3 a.m. Saturday in a storage shed behind a house in the 600 block of Ninth Avenue Drive S.E. Three or four masked men, at least one of them armed, burst into the shed and attempted to rob them, police Lt. Thurman Whisnant said.

Merritt pulled out his own handgun and fired but was shot twice in the abdomen, police said. The robbers ran, and Merritt went to a nearby emergency medical services building. From there, he was taken to Frye Regional Medical Center and underwent surgery, Whisnant said.

No one had been arrested by Monday afternoon, and police were still trying to sort out conflicting details of the shooting -- such as the exact number of poker players and robbers, Whisnant said.

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