A Macon store clerk survived an armed robbery last year. On Monday, he died in one

Nearly 13 months after a Macon convenience store clerk was shot in the leg, he was fatally shot in another armed robbery.

Brijesh Kumar Patel, 42, was hit by multiple bullets sometime before 10 p.m. Monday at the L&C Convenient Store at 917 Hillcrest Blvd., according to a Bibb County Sheriff’s Office release.

A little after 10 p.m. Monday, customers found Patel bleeding on the floor behind the counter of the lime green store off Napier Avenue. The cash register drawer was open and empty.

The customers frantically called 911 to report the shooting.

Brenda Easley, who lives around the corner from the 24-hour store, heard the sirens but was too afraid to leave her home at that time of night due to nefarious characters in the neighborhood.

“I pray to the Lord that the police do work hard to find out (who did it) and bring his family some justice,” Easley said.

She said it was awful that a man working hard to take care of his family would be robbed and gunned down.

When Patel got off in the early morning, he often would joke with folks who gathered for breakfast at the Nu-Way restaurant next door and visited people at the detail shop nearby, she said.

“He talked. He liked to have fun. He laughed,” said Easley, who said she had gotten upset with him for calling her “Ma.”

“I ain’t old enough to be his mama,” she said, laughing. “But when you put him in check, he laughed, he’d apologize to you. He was cool, you know. He was all right with me.”

Patel was rushed to the Medical Center, Navicent Health, where he died at 10:44 p.m., Bibb County Deputy Coroner Lonnie Miley said.

Hospital workers recognized him as the same man who had been brought in last summer, Miley said.

On July 28, 2016, Bibb sheriff’s deputies investigated another shooting during an armed robbery at the store, which has roll-down barriers over the door and windows.

Just after 1 a.m. that Thursday morning, Patel was outside the store when two men approached him and demanded money and his cellphone.

One of the men pulled a gun and Patel, then 41, was shot in the right leg as the robbers struggled with him.

The black men about 5 feet 8 inches tall left Patel outside and went in and took money from the store.

That shooting followed the death of southwest Macon convenience store clerk Prakash Patel, who was shot to death the month before on June 18, 2016.

Anyone with information in the homicide and robbery is urged to call for an investigator at 478-751-7500, or phone anonymous tips for a potential reward to Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 877-68-CRIME.

This story was originally published August 22, 2017 at 6:36 AM with the headline "A Macon store clerk survived an armed robbery last year. On Monday, he died in one."