St Louis security guard fatally shoots armed robber at nightclub
ST LOUIS MO January 28, 2022 — A shooting following a robbery on the parking lot of a north St. Louis nightclub early Wednesday left one man dead and another wounded.
A security guard at the club saw the holdup and opened fire killing one of the men involved police said. City homicide detectives are investigating.
The double shooting was about 1 a.m. at Diana’s Royal Palace, 4266 Natural Bridge Avenue. The business is in the city’s Greater Ville neighborhood.
One man died after being shot in the head; another man was hit in the leg and is expected to survive.
St. Louis police said the shooting happened on the parking lot. One of the alleged robbers, a man in his 30s, was found on a sidewalk near the club, suffering from a gunshot wound. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police haven’t released his name.
The other shooting victim survived and apparently was among four people robbed at gunpoint. The injured man is 56 years old and hospitalized, though police haven’t said how badly he was hurt.
The injured man was with another man and two women at their car parked outside the club when they were approached by four men who robbed them at gunpoint, police said.
A security guard saw the robbery and began firing shots at the suspects, police said. A police summary of the shooting didn’t say if the security guard’s bullets hit the robbery victim too, or how the robbery victim ended up being shot.
The 25-year-old security guard wasn’t injured. The dead robber’s three accomplices got away.
The Royal Palace, whose owner could not be reached Wednesday, has been connected to other shootings over the years. On Nov. 10 of last year, a 19-year-old man was shot in the leg after he got kicked out of the lounge for fighting. The shots outside the club also hit two vehicles.
Several years ago, on Nov. 5, 2006, a man named Rama Moore, 31, was fatally shot inside the doorway of the Royal Palace. Prosecutors said Craig Allen of Cahokia shot Moore because Moore had been talking and dancing with Allen’s ex-wife. Allen was convicted in the case.
In 1998, a Golden Gloves boxer named DeWayne Geans was fatally shot in a car on Natural Bridge in the aftermath of a fight inside the Royal Palace lounge. Geans, 35, and another man were thrown out of the nightclub after they started fighting. As Geans left in a car, the suspect pulled alongside and opened fire. Marvin Stewart was convicted in the case.
NOTE: This is the fifteenth person who has died in a confrontation with private security.
