Macon store clerk dies after shooting during apparent robbery on Napier Avenue

A convenience store worker was headed into work when he was confronted by two gunmen just after 8 a.m. Tuesday on Napier Avenue.

The Gulf Food Mart clerk, known as A.P. to customers and co-workers, was led by gunpoint into the building where he was fatally shot, according to video footage from the store at the corner of Bartlett Street in the 2800 block of Napier.

It was not immediately clear what, if anything, was taken. A Bibb County Sheriff’s Office news release said investigators are still trying to sort out what happened inside the store.

When deputies arrived, 36- year-old Alpeshkumar Prajapati was lying on the floor in a puddle of blood just inside the front door.

Investigators are piecing together video surveillance images taken from a recently enhanced camera system at the store, which also enclosed some of the front windows since a robbery just over a year ago.

One video from Tuesday morning shows a hooded gunman leading Prajapati into the store.

The masked man had his left hand on Prajapati’s shoulder and his right hand holding a gun to the worker’s back.

After Prajapati appears to enter codes for the alarm system, the hooded gunman leads him out of camera range to the cashier area as another masked man enters the front door.

About 15 seconds after Prajapati and the first gunman are out of frame, they hurriedly go back to the alarm controls near the front door, as if to turn off the system, according to the video clip obtained by The Telegraph.

The actual shooting is not shown in that piece of footage.

Prajapati was still alive but gravely wounded when he was rushed to Medical Center, Navicent Health, where he died at the Trauma Center at 9 a.m., deputy coroner Lonnie Miley said.

Co-workers said he was wounded in his side, near his back, and had lost a lot of blood judging by what they saw from the camera feed they could access from their cellphones.

One of them said she couldn’t hold back the tears when she saw Prajapati on the floor in all that blood.

The gunman who led Prajapati through the store was wearing white gloves, a black mask, a gray hooded sweatshirt over black pants and black shoes.

The other gunman was wearing white gloves, a black mask and what appeared to be a navy blue shirt over a white T-shirt, black and white Adidas windbreaker pants with stripes down the legs and high top blue and white tennis shoes.

They left the store in an unknown direction.

Another of the victim’s co-workers, who did not want her name released to the public, said she was talking to Prajapati just the other day about staying safe and being careful in certain neighborhoods.

“He was nice. He worked at other places and nothing happened because he was nice, but that doesn’t stop people from being evil,” she said.

Customers arrived to find that deputies had roped off the parking lot. The morning regulars kept vigil on the corner as several patrol cars and a crime scene truck took over the parking lot in Bibb County’s 24th homicide of 2018.

“Just another black eye for this community,” Coroner Leon Jones said.

The wounded man’s female co-worker, who was prepared to reopen after the investigators concluded, couldn’t get him off her mind as she waited to talk to deputies.

“He was nice toward everyone. You could be a nun or a priest working back there, and they’ll still rob you,” she said.

A little more than a year ago on Aug. 1, a clerk at the same store was robbed not long after the old Fastee Foods reopened as Gulf Food Mart.

In that holdup, the employee was confronted outside, led into the store where the two robbers demanded money and hit the worker in the head with the gun. He was taken to the hospital for treatment.

Anyone with information about these crimes is urged to call an investigator at 478-751-7500 or phone anonymous tips to Macon Regional Crimestoppers at 877-68-CRIME.

This story was originally published August 14, 2018 at 8:51 AM.