‘Good guy with a gun’ stops 7-Eleven robbery … but is this NJ?

HAMILTON (Mercer) — You may have seen it by now — it's an extraordinary video, purporting to show a a 7-Eleven store near "Ham Wes HS" in Hamilton, New Jersey being robbed.

Midway through the encounter, with the apparent robbers on the cashier's side of the counter, a man in uniform strolls in firing. He may have hit one or both of the robbers. There's even a Brietbart.com report about the incident.

But Hamilton police say they don't know anything about the incident — and employees at the two 7-Elevens near Hamilton West High School say it didn't happen at their locations.

The video — posted to several Youtube accounts over the last day, with several identifying the 7-Eleven as being in Hamilton in the descriptions — shows one man wearing a black sweatshirt pointing a handgun at the cashier. A second man wearing a bright blue sweatshirt jumps over the counter. He points a weapon at the cashier's back as the cashier raises his hands in the air and is led away from the register.

As the man wearing black tries to open the register, a man wearing a black jacket with a patch enters the store through the front door, firing two shots from his own gun at the would-be robbers. The man in blue falls to the ground as the other robber steps away from the register.

That second man walks to the register and fires towards the thief behind the counter. "It's fake, it's fake," one man is heard saying. "Oh well, mine is real," the man with the patch says, Both robbers stand back up as the man with the patch jumps the counter himself pointing his gun at the two thieves. The cashier hits an alarm button to summon police.

It's not clear from the video what the patches on the man's jacket represent. Some YouTube commenters thought it looked like a New Jersey Department of Corrections patch — but the DOC says it doesn't know anything about one of its personnel being involved in such an incident, and the patch doesn't look like one of that department's

"We also have not received any reports of any such involvement. I'm inclined to believe it's not one of our officers.or one of our one issued jackets,"  DOC spokesman Pat Lombardi said.

The cashier of the Hamilton Arena Drive store is in an "island" at the center of the store — a different layout than the one seen in the video. The Broad Street store looks more like the one in the video, but has different displays, and the refrigerated case in that store has a white panel around it.

There's no indication in the video of when the robbery took place. It's not clear if any of those involved suffered serious injuries.

Police in Hamilton did report the robbery of two 7-Eleven locations within the past two weeks — one on Arena Drive, a short distance from the high school. The second robbery was at a store on Lalor Street near the Trenton border. But suspects in those incidents haven't been apprehended.

Hamilton Police Lt. Michael Kelvy, who is investigating the two robberies, told New Jersey 101.5 that if the video is legitimate, the robbery attempt in the video did not take place in Mercer County. Kelvy said both known cases are still under investigation.

A cashier at the Broad Street store, who would not give his name, said visitors hve asked about the video — he thought it was taken at a store in California. A cashier at the Arena Drive store said staff there is aware of the video, but said the robbery was at a 7-Eleven "in the Hamilton near Atlantic City." However, according to the 7-Eleven website, there is no location in the Hamilton located in Atlantic County.

A message for 7-Eleven's corporate office has not yet been returned.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNJ.

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