Jewelry salesman shoots 2 in robbery attempt

[Pat McGarrity]

A robbery gone "right":



Fires on pair attempting to steal his wares; 2 others flee
By Jody Callahan

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Just before 3 p.m. Wednesday, Joel Hobson heard three loud pops right outside his second-floor office. One floor below him, Nancy Dumas heard the same thing.

Those pops were gunfire, a signal that an attempted jewelry heist in East Memphis had gone awry. Four men, all described as speaking Spanish, had pounced on a traveling jewelry salesman, trying to take his merchandise.

Instead, 62-year-old Stephen Fleischman pulled his weapon and shot two of the suspects, leaving them bleeding in the parking lot as the others fled, Memphis police said. At least two of the suspects were armed.

On Wednesday afternoon, officers pored over the scene. Bloody clothes were bunched on the hot pavement where the men fell. They were taken to the Regional Medical Center at Memphis in critical condition.

“We heard a POP! POP! POP! Then there was a big commotion outside,” said Hobson, head of Hobson Realty and the owner of the building at 5384 Poplar. “When I got out there, (Fleischman) had his gun and one guy was there (on the ground) and the other was (over) there. He said, ‘Stay right there.’”

Looking out the window of her State Farm office, Dumas saw one of the wounded suspects, fallen between two parked cars.

“I saw the man with the gun in his hand,” she said. “It was scary, very scary. We shut our door and locked it, afraid we could be hostages or something.”

Fleischman has a legal gun permit from Alabama, Memphis Police Col. Jeff Mark said. He was also driving a car with Alabama license plates and telephone records indicate he lives in Mobile.

Traveling jewelry salesmen typically visit numerous jewelry stores, perhaps in multiple cities. They show their wares, trying to make a sale, then move on to the next store.

There are at least seven jewelers in the Hobson building, sharing two offices. Unlike a jewelry store in a mall, though, these jewelers sell by appointment only, often to a more upscale clientele.

It’s unlikely Fleischman had anything worth stealing, said a jeweler who met with the salesman a few minutes before the shooting.

“Most of them just have fakes. They have a (replica) of what the piece would look like,” said Claire Ellers, a jeweler with an office in the building. “He may have had a few pieces on him, but not much. It really wasn’t worth their time. They thought they had a big deal.”

The Memphis incident comes a year after masked gunmen robbed diamond couriers in Arkansas as part of a crime wave across the South. FBI officials suspected those thefts could be part of what they call “South American Theft Groups.”

FBI officials said the groups of illegal immigrants stake out traveling salesmen and jewelry shows, sometimes traveling across the country.

While this remains a Memphis Police case, the FBI is interested, said C.M. Sturgis, spokesman for the Memphis office.

“What we would be interested in would be information that’s developed out of their investigation that could help us solve other robberies around the country,” he said.

Sturgis was intrigued when he heard that the suspects reportedly spoke Spanish.

“(This) could have links to Central or South America and could be connected to a robbery team,” he said. “It’s too early to tell now.”

— Jody Callahan: 529-6531

The Associated Press contributed to this story.


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