The former owner of an Arlington gas station tells First Coast News his heart breaks for the family of a gas station clerk killed over the weekend. He knows how it feels to stare down an armed robber because he was in that situation months ago.
Vipin Sharma was shot inside his BP Gas Station on Arlington Expressway in July. The man accused of the crime has since been arrested and charged with attempted murder.
“I gave him the money, and he still shot me,” Sharma said.
The robber’s bullet went through Sharma’s hand and stomach and is lodged in his pelvic bone. Sharma spent a month in the hospital recovering.
More valuable than cash, the robber stole Sharma’s independence. His injuries left him unable to work and he and his wife decided to close the gas station a month after the shooting.
“I have no income since July,” Sharma said. “I still have bills coming out.”
Since then, Sharma has been relying on the generosity of strangers to get by. He is unable to stand for long periods of time and is in near-constant pain, saying the shooting flipped his world upside down.
Sharma sent his condolences to the family of the man killed in a separate gas station robbery in Jacksonville over the weekend, knowing the outcome of his situation could have been the same.
“It could be me,” he said. “Dead.”
Sharma said in the gas station and convenience store business, there’s a constant flow of strangers with little protection for the clerks. While he had heard stories of crime at gas stations, in the two years he owned the BP he never imagined he’d wind up a victim.
“You’re trying to treat them as [you would] everyone else,” Sharma said. “Talk to them, give them good service, but you don’t know which one is a bad apple.”
Sharma hopes to be able to someday work again. But he said he won’t be returning to the same job.
“No, I won’t do that anymore,” he said. “I can’t put my family through what they’ve been through because of me being shot.”