Gas Station Owner Has His Fill, Shoots Pipe-Wielding Robber in Face

For the 12 years that Cesar Batalon has owned the Unocal 76 service station on the corner of Chapman and Tustin avenues, no robber had attempted to hold up the 64-year-old man.

So when a pipe-wielding man walked into the service station office Saturday morning and demanded money, Batalon wasn’t about to give in easily.

“I opened the cash box and he took some 10s and 20s,” said Batalon. “But he wanted more. At that moment he asked me for more money, I shot him right there.”

A bleeding suspect, Daniel William Johnson, 31, of Laguna Niguel, was captured by Orange police at another gas station nearby minutes after the 8:30 a.m. shooting. He had a gunshot wound in the chin, and was listed in guarded condition at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana on Saturday evening.

Just three hours after the shooting, Batalon was back at work, joking with customers and willing to discuss the incident.

“Nothing like this ever happened to me. I always intended to get him first,” he said. “This was a stickup. I was afraid. I was defending myself.”

The pipe was bent in the shape of a gun and was wrapped in cloth, though Batalon thought the weapon was a knife, police said.

Right before the incident, according to witnesses, Johnson parked his white Chrysler minivan in the Barnaby Coffee Shop parking lot next door to the gas station and entered the restaurant to use the restroom.

“He seemed nervous, maybe out of his mind,” said Nick Panagakis, the owner of the coffee shop.

Johnson then went over to the gas station and confronted Batalon, police said. The attendant convinced the suspect that he kept all his money in a cash box outside by the gas pumps, he said. Johnson allegedly took about $100 from the box and then asked for more.

At that point, Batalon pulled out a .38-caliber revolver from his waistband and fired one round, wounding the robber.

After being shot, the man ran through the parking lot to his car, leaving a trail of blood that was still visible Saturday afternoon.

“When he started coming this way, we locked the back door,” Panagakis said. “We thought he was going to try to get in.”

Police said Johnson drove to a second Unocal gas station a few blocks away, where he staggered toward a pay telephone before collapsing.