WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Man shot during incident at Percival Road Mini Mart dies

Man shot during incident at Percival Road Mini Mart dies

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - Richland County deputies say 40-year-old Willis Brown, the man shot Friday at the Mini Mart store on Percival road, has died.

Brown had been listed in critical condition since Friday evening.

Authorities say Brown entered the store Friday afternoon and began verbally and physically assaulting 63-year-old store clerk Edward Kent.

Lt. Chris Cowan says Brown punched Kent, who pulled out a handgun in retaliation and shot Brown three times. 

Cowan says the shots were clearly in self-defense.

Richland County deputies say Kent won't face charges.

Bystanders identified the shooter as Kent, also known as "Pops."

"He's like an old guy the whole neighborhood know. You know he knows everybody in the neighborhood. All the girls and stuff like that. He's just like an old man of the neighborhood," says Gregory Hill.

Hill says Kent and the man later identified as Brown had a minor argument on Thursday, but had reconciled.

"It was just like a misunderstanding, a miscommunication and stuff like that but they all brushed it off. It wasn't nothing serious," he says.

"We're reviewing video surveillance tapes from inside the business, reviewing the video surveillance equipment--trying to determine exactly what happened," Cowan said Friday.

"Everybody was inside the actual business at the time. I think there's some people that are, you know, being speculative on the information but again we don't believe that anybody actually was standing there watching the incident at the time," said Cowan.

This is at least the third time the Sheriff's department has been called to the Mini Mart in the past month. The two previous incidents were both robberies. And neighbors say Kent was the victim in one of those holdups.

Store owner Hassan Vorda also told us Kent was robbed of a large amount of cash. That happened in the parking lot outside the store.

During their investigation, deputies impounded a white Ford Taurus said to belong to the wounded man.

Reported by Jack Kuenzie

Updated by Jeremy Turnage