By Randy Tucker and Marc Katz Staff Writers, Dayton Daily News (Ohio)

MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County – A Walgreen’s clerk was calm when she called 911 Saturday afternoon to tell police that a man carrying a rifle and dressed in fatigues had fired a shot inside the store. Police released the recording of the 911 call on Sunday.

“This is Walgreen’s, 5901 Springboro Pike. We have a gentleman with a gun in our pharmacy. He’s already shot once. We don’t know what’s happening back there,” she told the 911 operator at about 2 p.m.

As the call went on, however, her calm turned to panic as she abruptly interrupted the operator and pleaded in a trembling voice: “Please get someone here!”

When police arrived a short time later, they were met with gunfire from an AK-47 in the hands of a gunman whom police declined to identify pending charges. The gunman allegedly pointed the assault rifle at another female clerk inside the store and demanded morphine and OxyContin, police said.

A Miami Twp. police officer returned fire, wounding the suspect in the chest and the leg as he fled the store with the drugs, according to police, who said there were about 10 customers in the store at the time.

That ended moments of terror for the store’s customers and employees, including the clerk who gave the 911 operator a play-by-play account of what she could hear and see from where she was hiding in the photo lab near the front of the store.

“He’s screaming and yelling and carrying on inside the store,” the employee told the 911 operator. “Did you see the gun that he had?” the operator asked. “Yes, it’s a rifle type,” the employee responded. “He shot once.” Police found a shell casing in the store near the pharmacy counter. “Has anyone been shot?” the operator asked. “I don’t know. He’s walking out the front door right now. He’s shooting! He shot outside about five or six times.”

“Is anybody shot?” the operator asked again.

“We can’t see,” the employee said, referring to a handful of customers in the photo department. “He’s coming back. Oh, they shot him.”

The gunman underwent surgery Saturday at Miami Valley Hospital. Officials there declined to release any information about his condition.

The man was described by witnesses as being in his 60s and about 6 feet tall, carrying as many as four knives, a handgun and two to three magazines of AK-47 ammunition.

The gunman could be charged today or Tuesday, according to Maj. John Di-Pietro, Miami Twp.’s deputy chief of police, who declined to release the name of the suspect or any further updates.

“I don’t expect anything until we get this guy charged on Monday or Tuesday,” he said Sunday.

In the aftermath of the shootout, the neighborhood where the holdup occurred was quiet Sunday.

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