It's not just about the money. (Making a Difference).

Azzat Amer, 40, is a native of Egypt. He has lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for the past 18 years, and during the last three has owned and operated A.Z. Patterson Grocery on the city's east side. In 1989, while he was running a local pizza shop, he was once robbed at gunpoint, and experienced firsthand what it is like to have one's hard-earned money stolen.

At about 1:15 p.m. on August 11th, Amer was sweeping up the front parking lot of his store when his cashier suddenly ran out and yelled, "Catch him, he robbed me!" The cashier, who had handed over the store's cash after being threatened with an unseen (and apparently nonexistent) gun, pointed to a man fleeing up a nearby street.

As reported in the next day's Winston-Salem Journal Sun, "Amer yelled at the man to stop. He didn't. So Amer ... gave chase." After a few minutes the suspect began running across a field, so Amer opted to circle around in the hope of cutting him off. When the robber noticed that no one appeared to be chasing him, he slowed down and began to walk. As described by Journal Sun reporter Patrick Wilson, "His yellow-and-blue, short-sleeve dress shirt soaked with sweat, Amer ran the rest of the way to cut the robber off, and confronted him," whereupon the thug "put his hand behind his back and yelled: 'I've got a gun! Don't get close to me! I'm going to kill you!'" Undeterred, the store owner hollered back that the police had the area surrounded, and: "You're not going to go nowhere. Give me my money!"

The robber, whom Amer described as a muscular fellow (Amer is himself large in stature), then began tossing money on the ground. Amer retrieved bills totaling $550, but kept chasing the frustrated suspect, who eventually turned and blurted, "What do you need from me? You've got your money." When Amer caught up, they scuffled briefly before, in Wilson's words, "the store owner began leading him back to the store by the belt buckle." A passing motorist also stopped to help. The subdued criminal, later identified as Dwayne Patrick Brown, 36, was arrested and charged with common-law robbery.

Amer told Wilson that it was the first robbery of his grocery store. "If someone needs food, I'll give it to them," he said, but were he to allow one robber to get away, it could encourage others. Regarding the chase, he said he was never frightened. "This is food for my kids [he has three]. I'm not going to let nobody take it from me."