Man shot by Circle K clerk had toy gun
Suspect charged with attempted armed robbery, booked into county jail
The man who was shot and injured by a Circle K clerk during an attempted robbery last week had been armed with a black airsoft style toy gun that “could not be differentiated from a real firearm,” according to court documents.
Ferron Mendez, 23, was shot in the stomach after police say he pointed the gun at employees of the convenience store on Eubank and Candelaria NE. He was booked into the county jail Monday after spending a week recovering at the University of New Mexico Hospital.
Mendez is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, attempt to commit armed robbery, conspiracy and other crimes. He attended his first court appearance Tuesday and prosecutors have filed a motion asking a 2nd Judicial District Court judge to keep him in jail until his trial.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, shortly before 4 p.m. on Sept. 18, a customer told Circle K employees he had just witnessed a robbery at a nearby gas station.
The employees locked one of the doors, but it wasn’t long before police say two men wearing masks showed up.
One of the men — Mendez — pointed a gun at store clerk Jennifer Wertz and another employee, according to the complaint.
And that’s when Wertz said she shot him in the stomach.
“She told me she thought she would be shot and killed and never see her kids again … ,” the detective wrote in the complaint. “Because she was in immediate fear of losing her life she pulled out her 9 mm Ruger handgun, ran the slide to chamber a round, she then pulled the trigger one time discharging the firearm.”
Mendez fell to the ground and then got up and ran away, according to the complaint.
Officers found him in a nearby parking lot and took him to UNMH.
His accomplice had fled the scene as soon as the shots were fired, according to the complaint. Police have not publicly identified him and did not respond to questions about him Tuesday.
Wertz is not being charged in the shooting, but she has said she was suspended from Circle K for two weeks after the shooting.
She told police she doesn’t normally work the night shift, but she had been asked to do so because four other employees had quit their jobs after a robbery a couple of nights earlier.
Wertz said she was carrying her gun because she was afraid to walk to her car alone at night because of several “violent encounters” that had occurred in the area.