Updated: 11:49 a.m. June 16, 2009

Roswell clerk shoots attacker after cellphone deflects knife
By LARRY HARTSTEIN

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Monday, June 15, 2009

A well-placed cellphone might have saved a Roswell liquor store clerk’s life Monday night.

When a would-be robber tried to stab Joseph Wescott at Beverage Mart on Holcomb Bridge Road, the knife dented the cellphone in the clerk’s pocket, but did not injure him.

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  • North Fulton County news Wescott, 59, then pulled a Glock .40-caliber pistol — which his son, a Roswell police officer, recently bought him for protection — and shot the man in the abdomen.

The suspect, identified as Carlos Jeanpierre, 24, of Atlanta, ran from the store. Half an hour later, North Fulton Regional Hospital reported getting a patient with a gunshot wound.

Jeanpierre underwent surgery for non-life threatening wounds, Roswell police Lt. James McGee said. He will be charged with two counts of aggravated assault, along with attempted armed robbery and possession of a weapon in the commission of a felony.

Police are looking for the accomplice who drove him to the hospital.

The incident began about 8:30 p.m., when the suspect entered the store, began shouting expletives for Wescott to give him the money, and waved a large knife at one of two customers inside.

“He then turned toward the clerk and lunged at him with the knife,” McGee said. “Luckily, he had the cellphone in his pocket, which deflected the knife.

“If not, it would have cost him serious bodily injury, and maybe his life.”

AJC