Employee Says Market Manager Saved His Life : Oxnard: Worker says shoplifting suspect was swinging a knife at him when his boss shot the 16-year-old.

A 16-year-old suspected shoplifter shot in the back by an Oxnard store manager Thursday was lunging at a store employee with a knife when he was shot, the employee said Friday, adding that his manager “saved my life.”

The youth, who has not been identified because of his age, remained at St. John’s Regional Medical Center on Friday. At the request of his parents, no information was given on his condition.

Police said they are still investigating the alleged theft and the shooting and have made no arrests.

The employee, who refused to give his name, said he was watching the boy about 3:45 p.m. Thursday at Oxnard Ranch Market and saw him allegedly take three cans of styling mousse. The employee said he followed the youth out to the parking lot, where the boy got on a bicycle and tried to ride away, with a knife visible in his hand.

The 21-year-old employee said he chased after the youth with other employees and yelled, “Are you gonna pay something?”

The employee said he tried to kick the youth’s bicycle to stop him and missed, but the youth fell on his own as he crashed the bicycle into a car.

At that point, he said, the youth swung the knife at him, and the manager, Ibrahim Himideh, who was coming out of the store, fired at the youth.

“He tried to cut my stomach and my manager shot him,” the employee said. “He saved my life.”

Police said one bullet was fired from a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun.

The employee said he was not struck by the youth’s knife, but his manager was later cut on the finger by the youth. Another witness said the manager and three employees handcuffed the youth, who was lying on the ground, unaware that he had been shot.

“By the time the cops got there he was already cuffed,” said a 23-year-old employee from Keene’s Hardware & Home Improvements, located in the same shopping center as the market. “The knife was laying on the ground.”

He said the knife appeared to have about a 2 1/2-inch blade.

The hardware store employee said that the youth struggled and held his arms back trying not to be handcuffed. “He didn’t even know he was shot,” he said. “The manager said, ‘Don’t move, you’ve been shot.’ ”

The employee said the youth was shot in the middle of his lower back, adding that the manager pulled up the youth’s shirt.

Himideh, 33, of Oxnard said in an interview Thursday evening that he was trying to protect his employees. He said he thought the youth may have had a gun, as well as the knife he saw.

“All the sudden, he reaches into his pants and pulls out what seems like a gun to one of my employees. So my employee started screaming, ‘It’s a gun, it’s a gun,’ ” the manager said. “So I ran outside and see this guy basically flinging this knife left and right so he can get away.

“I seen this huge knife in his hand,” he said, “and I was under the assumption that he had maybe a gun in his other hand. . . . Obviously, someone’s life was at risk.”

A Ventura County public defender said Friday that normally a store manager does not have the legal right to shoot a suspected shoplifter. But the attorney said that if a store manager or employee, or any other witness, believes deadly force is being used against a person, they can use deadly force to save the potential victim.

“It’s almost like the law of self-defense,” Public Defender Duane Dammeyer said. “If someone uses deadly force against you, you would have the right to use deadly force to defend yourself. . . . Defense of others is similar.

“What it comes down to is the reasonableness of the store owner’s belief,” he said, adding that the specific circumstances of what a person sees and believes are scrutinized to see if the belief that deadly force is being used seems reasonable.