A Philadelphia store owner, who usually takes her gun to work, forgot it Monday morning — but she’s now glad she took a break to retrieve it from home.
That’s because Sharon Doyle was forced to use her .38 caliber revolver on a man who robbed her store and held a knife to her chest later in the day.
“I did what I had to do to be here,” Doyle, a 46 year-old former police officer and Secret Service agent, told NBC Philadelphia.
A 47 year-old man, who police said was released from prison within the last year, barged in to Doyle’s store, Stan’s Health Foods, went behind the counter and grabbed a cash register.
After grabbing loot off the ground, Doyle said the man held a 6-inch knife to her chest.
Luckily, Doyle had the gun she had retrieved a little earlier in the day.
She fired the .38 revolver once, hitting the man in the torso and killing him.
“I just went into a mode like this is what has to be done,” Doyle told NBC Philadelphia. “One of us is walking out of the door and it’s gonna be me.”
“It might have saved somebody else because he looked like he was on a mission,” she added. “So, if it wouldn’t have been here, it may have been somewhere else.”
Doyle served as a Secret Service agent from 2002 to 2004 and worked as a police officer in Lower Makefield and Warminster Townships, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Authorities have ruled the shooting a justifiable homicide, but according to NBC Philadelphia, police still have Doyle’s revolver.