W. Oak Lane barber kills robbery suspect

On the day after he killed a 19-year-old would-be robber who had threatened him and his 9-year-old son, Baron Cross was filled with mercy - and a gnawing distress.

"I'll just say it again," Cross said in an interview at Cross Cutz, his four-chair West Oak Lane barber shop. "I'm a Christian. All I want to do is church, family, home and work.

"So, we're praying for the person's family as far as his mother and father and their support system, you know, because it's another young, black male that's leaving this community over something that's very silly," Cross continued.

It was more than silly, it was an armed robbery that went awry and left the 19-year-old gunman dead of a single gunshot wound to his head. The gunman, whose identity was not released but who lived on the 6200 block of Wister Street in East Germantown, was pronounced dead early yesterday at Albert Einstein Medical Center. Police said authorities were still trying to reach next of kin.

Cross, 33, who had been operating Cross Cutz for years, said the gunman knocked on the shop's door about 6 p.m., a time when he and his son were alone in the shop.

"He asked me a question about whether or not I was closed," Cross said. "I invited him in and got myself prepared to cut his hair.

"The suspect . . . starts digging in his pockets. I thought he was looking for a cell phone, maybe shifting his wallet or something."

The man then "pulls out a gun on me."

Demanding money, the gunman "goes into my pockets, goes into my cash register. He said, 'There's not enough,' " Cross said.

"I had my 9-year-old son here. He was in the back and didn't know what was going on. The person knew there was somebody else in here, threatened me and threatened if I didn't give him more money he would also harm my son."

The man briefly left the store, at 7400 Briar Rd., but returned before Cross could shut and lock the door behind him.

"As he gets closer to the door, I'm standing at the door," Cross said. "I just spin him in to the wall, used my handgun, put him to the wall and said, 'Don't move. Don't move.' "

Cross said the man "reached around his body with his gun and had it in to my mid-section and I had no choice."

According to police, Cross fired one shot from a .380-caliber pistol, and he is licensed to carry a concealed weapon.

Police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore said the gunman was shot once in the head, and taken to Einstein by medics after Cross reported the shooting.

No charges were filed, Vanore said, but the District Attorney's Office would review the case to make a final decision.

Vanore said a loaded 9mm Taurus pistol used by the robbery suspect was found at the scene. The weapon had previously been reported stolen.

Cross said he is a "hard-working man."

"I have five children and all I want to do is work and go home and that's it," Cross said. "A lot of people have been calling. I'm fine. Physically I'm fine. You want to talk emotionally? That's a different story."