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Would-be victim tells how he beat intruder with his own bat
Bristol Herald-Courier ^ | January 30, 2010 | Claire Galofaro

Posted on 01/30/2010 5:17:17 AM PST by Thirteen

HURLEY, Va. – When a large, 21-year-old man walked into a store armed with a baseball bat, threatening a robbery, Kenny Justus did what any old man would do: He wrestled the bat from the intruder, beat him nearly to death with it and then shot him in the arm.

“He was calling me an old man while we were fighting,” Justus, 64, said. “I told him, the next one he picks on better be older than me.”

Police accused the bat-wielding intruder of trying to rob Justus’s car lot Thursday.

Justin Gregory Charles, badly beaten and with a gunshot wound in his right forearm, was taken to Holston Valley Medical Center by helicopter. Reached in his hospital room, Charles said he was “not very good at all,” but he declined to elaborate on his injuries or how he received them.

Justus threw out his shoulder.

Charles lives with his father next door to Justus Auto Sales, the car lot on Hurley Road where the fight took place.

Justus said he knows Charles well – he’d often stop in to use the phone or borrow the weed eater.

“He just came in and sat down, I thought he looked kinda funny,” Justus said. “Then he got this big wooden bat out and said ‘I’m gonna take your money and your safe.’ ”

At first, Justus got out his little gun, but decided against shooting. “I didn’t want to kill him,” he said. “But I didn’t want to be killed, either.”

That’s when it dawned on Justus to commandeer the bat. The two men wrestled for it until Justus, who describes himself as a lean man, pried it out of the intruder’s hands. Justus said he just wanted to knock him out, but the intruder kept getting up and coming back.

“I beat on him until that bat was in three pieces,” Justus said. “You know if you can’t knock somebody out with a baseball bat, he’s gotta be crazy on drugs.”

Justus said he hit him, straight on the head, until blood spattered the entire office and the bat fell apart.

“Blood was flying everywhere,” Justus said. “It ruined all the furniture, it looked like two pints of blood on the floor.”

Still, the intruder charged him. So Justus pulled the trigger and then called the cops.

Buchanan County Sheriff Ray Foster said charges against Charles are pending.

“I hate to get in a mess like this,” Justus said. “I beat him with his own baseball bat like I was fighting for my life. If he hadn’t brought that bat with him, he’d be better off.”

| (276) 645-2531


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Miscellaneous; Society; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: bat; gun; napl; robbery; store
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1 posted on 01/30/2010 5:17:18 AM PST by Thirteen
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To: Thirteen

Wow.......words fail.


2 posted on 01/30/2010 5:20:34 AM PST by RightOnline
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To: Thirteen
If the perp ever recovers, he'll have a lot to think about in prison.


3 posted on 01/30/2010 5:20:43 AM PST by Daffynition (What's all this about hellfire and Dalmatians?)
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To: Slings and Arrows; martin_fierro; null and void
Not quite industrial strength humor, but I figured you guys could do *something* with it.

Cheers!

4 posted on 01/30/2010 5:23:20 AM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Thirteen

Should have killed him and thinned the herd. This POS will be out and robbing people again.


5 posted on 01/30/2010 5:25:15 AM PST by SAMWolf (Looking for my generations Lexington and Concord.)
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To: Daffynition

6 posted on 01/30/2010 5:25:22 AM PST by ErnBatavia (It's not the Obama Administration....it's the "Obama Regime".)
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To: Thirteen

7 posted on 01/30/2010 5:27:40 AM PST by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: Thirteen

Don’t pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he’ll just kill you. ...


8 posted on 01/30/2010 5:28:42 AM PST by Vaquero (BHO....'The Pretenda from Kenya')
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To: Thirteen
There's an old guy I play senior softball with who had a similar experience. Several years ago he was walking back to his truck which was parked in a mall parking lot when he saw some guy in his truck going thru the glove box. Cheese (thats what we call him) said he walked up to the back of his truck, pulled out his baseball bat from his gear bag, walked around to the drivers side door then tapped on the window and told the guy to stay in the truck while Cheese called 911 on his cell.

The guy didn't listen and Cheese looks kinda old so the guy tries to get out of the truck. As he stepped out of the door Cheese starts wailing on him with the bat. LOL!

The guy then jumped back into the cab. A minute or two later he tries again to get out with the same result, Cheese starts beating on him........

This time the guy jumped back into the cab and stayed there till the cops arrived........

9 posted on 01/30/2010 5:30:51 AM PST by Hot Tabasco (I want a hoochie-mama for Christmas, only a hoochie-mama will do............)
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To: Thirteen
Whoa! Sounds like a nasty little drug from years ago is making a comeback (Ketamine or “Special K”). When a Louisville slugger fractures against somebody's headbone like that, and the perp can still get to his feet...make mine .45
10 posted on 01/30/2010 5:30:52 AM PST by PowderMonkey (Will work for ammo.)
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To: Thirteen

The guy robs the store next to his own house and they know him?


11 posted on 01/30/2010 5:35:03 AM PST by Dem Guard
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To: Thirteen

“If he hadn’t brought that bat with him, he’d be better off.”

Paraphrasing Johnny Cash’s Don’t Take Your Guns to Town: ‘Don’t take your bat to town, Bill... leave your bat at home.’


12 posted on 01/30/2010 5:38:43 AM PST by Big E
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To: Thirteen

These dumbshits just have no idea that age don’t mean nothing anymore.

Bring it on homeboys...bring it on...LOL.


13 posted on 01/30/2010 5:41:26 AM PST by Tainan (Cogito, ergo conservatus)
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To: Dem Guard

Nobody said the guy was smart.

I once worked with a guy who robbed his own bank.
The kicker is that he got away with it. Long story.


14 posted on 01/30/2010 5:41:41 AM PST by Venturer
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To: ErnBatavia
I love that! Looks like a claymation that I would do! ;D


15 posted on 01/30/2010 5:42:13 AM PST by Daffynition (What's all this about hellfire and Dalmatians?)
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To: Dem Guard

What can I say? Drugs make people do strange things.


16 posted on 01/30/2010 5:42:22 AM PST by Thirteen (You can lead a horse to drink, but you can't make it water.)
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To: Thirteen

The moral of this story is just shoot the SOB and don’t mess around!


17 posted on 01/30/2010 5:44:24 AM PST by SWAMPSNIPER (THE SECOND AMENDMENT, A MATTER OF FACT, NOT A MATTER OF OPINION)
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To: Venturer

Well I guess he couldn’t walk very far with a baseball bat in his hands.


18 posted on 01/30/2010 5:47:05 AM PST by Dem Guard
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To: Thirteen

LOL, ten to one says Kenny Justus is a former Marine.


19 posted on 01/30/2010 5:50:09 AM PST by Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus (We bury Democrats face down so that when they scratch, they get closer to home.)
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To: Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus

Looks like Mr. Gregory got the justus he deserved. ;-)


20 posted on 01/30/2010 5:57:09 AM PST by bjorn14 (Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. Isaiah 5:20)
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