When George Batty barged into the health food shop run by Sharon Doyle, who was alone behind the counter, he had nothing good on his mind. But before he demanded cash from the lone woman and held a knife to her chest, he probably should have checked her resumé first.
Batty already had a long criminal record when he threatened Sharon Doyle’s life, but unfortunately for him, he learned the hard way about the 46-year-old store proprietor’s past, and now it’s too late for him to do anything about it.
Here’s what happened. At about 5 pm Monday afternoon in the Mayfair neighborhood of northeast Philadelphia, Batty targeted an unassuming shop , Stan’s Health Food, on the 7100 block of Frankford Avenue in Philly. We’ll never know, but maybe Batty thought a small health food shop with a lone woman behind the counter was easy pickings. How tough can a health food shop clerk be, right?
Doyle was minding the 30-year-old store all by herself, and there were no customers on hand. It was just Doyle and the knife-wielding 47-year-old robber.
But what George Batty did not know was that the unassuming Sharon Doyle was a former Philadelphia police officer — and U.S. Secret Service agent. Not only did she carry a firearm for protection in the store, she was extremely well-trained in how to use one.
Batty, according to the police account of the altercation, grabbed the store’s cash register and slammed it the floor, breaking it open and spilling cash, which he immediately began to gather up. But when he stood up and pressed his knife to Sharon Doyle’s chest, that’s when she made her move.
“She pulled out a revolver and shot the suspect one time in his torso,” said Chief Philly Police Inspector Scott Small.
It turned out that once was enough. Batty collapsed to the floor, still clutching the store’s cash in his hand. Doyle immediately called the police.
“When police got here to transport him to the hospital, he still had a $100 clutched in his left hand,” said Small of the fallen robbery suspect.
Batty was transported to a nearby hospital, but was pronounced dead at 6:03 pm.
Doyle, who decided to go into business for herself after her career on the police force started to burn her out, was uninjured — and unruffled — after the incident.
“She called real quick, she said she’s fine,” her sister, Christine Cutter, told WPVI News in Philadelphia. “She was very calm. We were the ones that were freaking out.”
As for Sharon Doyle, “I just did what I had to do to be here,” she said.
The Sharon Doyle incident was reminiscent of an incident in Tucson, Arizona , in May, when convenience store owner Maen Mdanat, a former special forces soldier, delivered a beating to a prospective robber in his store.
