South Carolina Supreme Court
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The owner of a South Carolina convenience store won’t have to face a wrongful-death lawsuit after his nephew shot and killed a customer.
Suhib Yousef was 18 when he shot David Wilson in 2020 following an altercation that also involved a taser and a machete. The following year, a state judge declared he was entitled to immunity under the Protection of Persons and Property Act, a type of stand-your-ground law.
Thanks to that ruling, the South Carolina Supreme Court decided this month that Green’s Grocery in Charleston and Mahmoud Yousef couldn’t be sued over the incident.
“The Act is silent with respect to immunity for third parties like (Green’s and Mahmoud),” Justice George James, Jr. wrote.
“However… extending immunity to Respondents in this case is entirely consistent with the intent of the General Assembly, which has pronounced the public policy that law-abiding citizens, including those in their places of business, should be permitted ‘to protect themselves, their families and others from intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action…”
It all started with a phone charger. The civil suit says Wilson jokingly acted like he was walking out of the store without paying for it, and Suhib ordered him out of the store. The two, as seen on surveillance footage, started arguing.
When Suhib grabbed a taser, things escalated. Wilson challenged him to “Come over here and say that s---,” records show, as Suhib continued to tell him to leave the store. Suhib also had a machete and swung it, leaving Wilson to spit on him and exit the store.
But as Wilson reached the door, Suhib surprised him from behind with a gun and told him again to leave. Wilson told him to “put that bitch down.”
“Wilson then rushed back into the store toward Yousef in an attempt to disarm him,” James wrote, “and Yousef shot Wilson. Wilson fell to the floor and died the next day from two gunshot wounds to the head.”
The civil suit sought to impose liability on the store and owner Mahmoud for employing Suhib, who had been robbed two months earlier. Records show he was “scared of everybody” and would get up in the middle of the night to make sure all doors in his house were locked.
Mahmoud took Suhib to a therapist and introduced him to a shooting range. He also provided a gun for the store. Judge R. Markley Dennis, in the criminal proceeding, found Wilson had become belligerent when told to leave the store.
“Wilson’s continuous refusal to leave coupled with his aggressive actions gave Yousef a legitimate reason to threaten the use of force,” Dennis wrote.
