Good Guy with a Gun #15: New York City

Original incident: November 7 & 8, 2023. The video is really important for understanding how important it was for this bodega clerk to be armed, and why he's a GGWAG even though he was charged for it.

This is the kind of content featured in the 2026 Good Guy with a Gun one-page-per-day desk calendar.

The setting is the Top Shelf cannabis dispensary in the Bronx. (Everyone outside of the area equates NYC with Manhattan, but there are five boroughs: Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, Yonkers, and Bronx.)

The must-see source here is ABC 7 from New York, because they have the surveillance footage from inside the store — though a little out of order, as news broadcasts generally are.

Start the video at 41 seconds into the news report to see surveillance video of Romel Carey, a 23-year-old from Pennsylvania, browsing in the store a little before midnight on November 7, 2023. No other customers were there. After a few moments, then walked to the counter and drew his gun. He immediately jumped and ran out of the store because the clerk, Fares Alhamzi, drew his gun. (We don’t see this on the video, but it seems uncontroversial.)

There’s some confusing reporting that I think we can discount: One suggests that Carey was angry with the clerk, Fares Alhamzi, for being slow while serving another patron — with nobody else in the store, that seems unlikely. And Alhamzi’s cousin, who owned the store, said that Fares told him that Carey had yelled, “I’m coming back! I’ll kill you!” It doesn’t look like there’s any time for that, either, though.

About 40 minutes later (so now a little after midnight on November 8), Carey returned. Other reporting shows surveillance footage from a nearby shop: Carey appears to be gearing up to enter the store. He lifts his mask, checks his pockets, and enters the store while drawing his gun.

So now, if you bring back the ABC 7 news video to 21 seconds, you can see the immediate, aggressive, violent assault against Alhamzi — who has basically nowhere to go. Eventually, as Carey tries to get a bead on him, he dives behind the register and grabs his gun again. He shoots wildly at Carey. He’s either the best-trained assassin in the world, or he’s wildly lucky: He hits Carey in the head, and Carey drops to the floor in the doorway.

Welcome to New York, have a nice day

There are some very New York City aspects to this whole affair.

First, look at the guy who is already in the store when Carey comes back. Carey has his gun out from moment one, and the customer just kind of idles to the side to get out of the way, looking at what’s going on, not trying to run. He only moves fast when the bullet flies. That kind of detachment is only available to the human species in special circumstances, and NYC has most of them.

Next, look at the comments on this story from the Gothamist. (You need to make a free account to read the story and the comments.) They range from “I waited 4 hours for the cops to respond once. I totally understand why someone would use DIY solutions.” to “It’s just property. It’s not worth more than a life.” to “I really hope that this guy will be prosecuted and convicted. (And I work in criminal defence, so I never say such a thing lightly.)” Obviously, these commenters didn’t have the benefit of the surveillance video: When Carey returned, there was no question that he was intent on murder. Still, the range of opinion runs from New Yorker fed up with criminals to New Yorker fed up with vigilantes.

Next, look at the victim: At the time of the assault, Fares Alhazmi was a 26-year-old immigrant from Yemen who had been in the U.S. for only a year, working behind the counter for his cousin for about six months, saving money for college while improving his English and sending funds back to his family. God bless America that people can come here and make better lives for themselves. (No mention of his immigration status. It’s New York: Probably nobody knows for sure. But I blame the officials, not the immigrants, for that fact.)

Next -- and there’s surveillance video of this -- as a crowd gathers around Carey’s dying body, a passerby sees the gun, picks it up, shoves it in his bag, and walks briskly off.

Finally, look at New York punishing the victim. The evidence clearly shows that this was a justifiable homicide, but the weapon itself wasn’t registered, so Alhamzi was charged with illegal possession of a firearm. Apparently New York politicos like Governor Kathy Hochul care about immigrants just enough to let them die, undefended, at the hands of criminals. “Shall not be infringed” is just a clump of words.

Some people might say that this isn’t a good guy with a gun story because the shooter will legitimately be prosecuted under the laws of the state. I say that it _is_ a good guy with a gun story, because there’s no universe in which this story would have turned out better if Alhamzi had been disarmed.

Postscript: There’s some coverage of reactions from Carey’s mother and uncle. I don’t include them in the story because they’re just sad examples of relatives learning unpleasant things about their son or nephew.

Sources

ABC 7 Eyewitness News: They worked hard on this story. The first article they released didn’t have video from inside the store, but showed video from a nearby store; the second article is the one linked above with video from inside the store. Note that ABC 7 says that the cannabis dispensary was licensed, while the Daily News said it was unlicensed.

The Daily News also has the video, but that article is behind a paywall. There’s another article with free access that’s okay, and a third article that’s also behind a paywall that says “family in disbelief”. My reading of that article suggests that it takes the relatives’ beliefs a bit too seriously: I feel bad for them, but they were clearly wrong about Carey.

The NY Post ran a brief article.

WPIX 11 gives almost no detail in either article.

AM New York seems to have released information before they knew the whole story. They call Carey a “victim,” which rankles, but it may have just been an early report.

Bronx.com is the worst, both for its brevity (it says almost nothing) and its headline: “Romel Carey, 23, Murdered”. Sorry, Bronx.com, but “murder” has a meaning, and it’s not the same thing as “homicide” or “kill” or other terms.

News 12 from Long Island, New York gives very little detail in its two reports.

AWR Hawkins covered the story in Breitbart. (We knew he would, right?) This write-up seems to be from before we knew some of the details.

The Blaze gives the story some basic coverage.

The Gothamist does a decent job of talking about the incident, clearly prior to the release of the surveillance video from inside the store. They also focus on the people in the story, covering Alhamzi in some detail, talking to the shop’s owner / Alhamzi’s cousin, and detailing a conversation with Carey’s mother.

That thing that never happens, happens every day.

Like the idea of a Good Guy with a Gun story every single day? Get the 2026 calendar! All 365 pages feature a news story from 2024.

In addition, this Substack will feature Good Guy with a Gun stories every day of the year, all taken from news stories so you can verify them yourself and share them around. They’ll generally be from about two years prior, which gives time to make sure there aren’t any legal or fraud issues to worry about.

Starting in 2026, we’ll open up paid subscriptions, and all paid subscribers will get seven posts per week. (People who bought a calendar will be eligible for a free full subscription.) Unpaid subscribers will still get two GGWAG stories every week.