The owner of the Pita Stop restaurant, a Middle Eastern institution in Birmingham’s Southside, said he had to shoot an intoxicated man who beat him Saturday in a violent dispute over a bill.
The shooting happened just after 12 p.m. at the restaurant in the 1100 block of 12th Street South.
Mohammad “Matt” Islam, 41, said he has worked in the restaurant, which opened in 1977, since 1999 and purchased it in 2021.
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“The next thing I know, something hit me and I’m on the ground and he was hitting me over and over. There was blood on the floor,” Islam said. “I was trying to make him understand there was a miscommunication.”
Islam said in that moment he feared he would die.
“I thought this was how my life was going to end,” Islam said.
A customer picked the man up off Islam and told him to leave, Islam said. “If it was not for him, I’d be dead,” Islam said.
The man who attacked him, however, did not leave, Islam said.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do to the employees or the customers .. I got a gun,” Islam said. “The customer was asking him to leave; I was afraid for them. I had to shoot.”
Islam said he shot the man three times and then called police, who stayed on the line with him until an officer arrived.
R&I – TP
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Article URL : https://www.al.com/news/2023/12/pita-stop-owner-fatally-shooting-attacker-in-birmingham-restaurant-will-haunt-me-forever.html