FRANKLIN CO., OH (WCMH) — A 27-year-old Galloway man has been charged in connection with an attempted armed robbery at a convenience store in Darbydale Thursday night. Deputies say Emanuel Hamm pulled a gun on the clerk at the M&M Food Mart about 9:30 pm and demanded money. The clerk pulled a gun from his back pocket and fired a shot at Hamm who then fled.

Deputies found Hamm a short while later at a local hospital seeking treatment for a gunshot wound to his hand. He has been charged with aggravated robbery and is scheduled for arraignment on Saturday morning.

The owner of the store, Aziz Khettab, says after three robberies last year he decided to keep a gun in the store.

“We work hard for this,” Khettab said. “We put in 12, 14, 15 hours a day and for somebody to walk in from the middle of nowhere and try to take your life and your money, that makes no sense.”

The clerk, who asked that we not identify him, says Hamm looked suspicious the second he walked in the store. Surveillance video shows the suspect stroll toward the counter and immediately pull up a gun and point it at the clerk.

The clerk immediately pulls up his own gun.

“I didn’t think about it,” he said. “I just pulled the gun. If I didn’t do it first – it was me. It was him or me. I had no choice.”

The clerk says the first thought in his mind last night was his children. Now, he says, he feels sorry for the gunman.

“Maybe he has a family too. Maybe he has kids. I know what he did was bad, robbing people. But I wish there were other options.”