Shot by Guard — Albany Stickup Suspect Killed, 1980

by G. Jack Urso

 

Albany Times Union, Dec. 31, 1980.

Sometime just before 6: 00 AM, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 1980, 12-year-old- William Koren left his home at 505 Yates Street, Albany, NY, to deliver the Times Union newspaper. The temperature hovered around 32-deg F and there was about 3-inches of snow on the ground. Fog blanketed the city that morning and the sun wouldn’t rise until 7:45 AM (data from Weatherspark.com). About a block away from his home, heading East, Koren picked up a trail of blood. It led to where a thief spent his last moments on Earth, choking on his own blood due to a .357 cal. bullet that struck his neck.

In my research for the article, The Rise and Fall of Big Dom’s Subs, one of the unsolved mysteries regarded a robbery of the Ontario Street store that led to the death of the perpetrator after being shot by Big Dom’s security officer Leonard (Lenny) Basile, brother of the owners Dominic and Joe. Over four decades later, no one could remember what exactly happened. Rumors suggested the robber met his end after robbing the store three times in a row. While I recalled the incident from my youth, having worked for Big Dom’s, without knowing the exact year, I spent several fruitless hours at the library going through the Times Union’s early 1980s archives on microfilm trying to find more information about it before giving up.

The Ontario Street store, still a sub shop 46 years later (author's collection, 2016).

Just recently, however, some five years after I published that article, William Koren came across it while doing his own research on the incident. With his assistance, I was able to find more information about the incident and discovered several period news reports that filled in many of the blanks, though not quite ball.

In my initial article, based upon my own recollection, with some help of a few others who also shared a hazy recollection of the incident, it was thought that Lenny Basile shot the robber who fled before dying around the corner and behind a church on Yates Street, just next to the Vincentian Institute Catholic school.

“I recall seeing it at first on Yates heading east on Yates, it ended in the back of that Church on the other side of a fence apparently making it over and looked like he came to rest as he just got over as there was a large pool of blood. I do remember doubling back and saw it started somewhere on Ontario,” Koren reported in an exclusive interview with Aeolus 13 Umbra.

According to Dec. 31, 1980, Times Union account, the robbery occurred about 2 AM the morning of Tuesday, Dec. 30. The robber had previously hit the same store Friday night and early Sunday morning, stealing less than $120 in total. In the previous robberies, store employees reported the robber displayed a gun, so Lenny came prepared with his licensed .357 magnum revolver.

Staking out the store from his van, Basile saw the robber enter. Approaching the store as the robber was leaving. Basile saw the gun and told the robber to “freeze,” who instead took off down the street. Basile fired, hitting the thief in the neck. It must have been just a nick, however, because a solid hit would have dropped him right then and there.

According to the Times Union report, the robber was taken to Albany Medical Center where he died later that morning at 8:30 AM.

According to my co-workers at this store when I started working there the next year, the robber left through the open side door in this picture where Lenny Basile approached him (author's collection, 2026)

I knew Lenny at the time because I helped my mother clean the sandwich chain’s main offices on the weekends and I would see Lenny there with his chrome-plated .357 in his shoulder holster. Presumably, it was the same one used in the shooting.

Unless you actually shot a .357 Magnum it is impossible to appreciate its power. One time, my former brother-in-law allowed me to get off a couple shots with his .357. The first shot blew my arms straight up in the air and over my head. You have to be strong and have a tight grip to control a.357, and Lenny managed to hit his target while he was running away at night.

Standing at the churchyard where the body was found, looking towards the corner a short block down from Big Dom's. It was a long way for the thief to run with a bullet wound in his neck (author's collection, 2026).

Police found a blood-covered toy gun at the scene, also described as an “imitation” gun in another news report. Toy guns up through the 1970s and 1980s were frighteningly realistic. Among my childhood toys was an M-1 Garand my father said was a near-replica of his Marine-issued weapon from the Korean War. I also had a German Lugar pistol which, although a toy, was made of cast metal with an authentic looking grip. The police one Halloween decided it looked real enough to stop and frisk me.

Who the robber was is unknown. Described as 5 ft 6 in with blond hair, he was carrying no ID. A few NYC subway tokens found in his pocket led to police speculation it was a SUNY-Albany student from the NYC-area; however, it was Christmas break. While not unreasonable a NYC-area student might remain in Albany over the holidays, something just doesn’t quite add up. I looked through a couple more issues of the Times Union to see if the robber was ever identified, but that will take a deeper dive.

The temperature fell to -10-deg F on Dec. 31. It would not rise above 32-deg until Jan. 18, leaving the trail of blood to remain frozen on the ground until then or the next snowfall covered it up.

The church lot with the approximate location where the body was found in red. According to William Koren, “It [the side yard] went back about 30 feet to a fence. There were trees there and this was more of a yard” (author's collection, 2026).

I began working as a sandwich maker for Big Dom’s a year after the shooting at the Ontario Street store, and often into the early morning hours, so I can easily put myself in the employees' shoes. In reflecting on the incident, one can’t help but note all the tragedy involved. A thief’s life coming to an end in a churchyard recalls the thief crucified next to Christ who was promised paradise. All I can hope for is that while the thief lay choking on his own blood in the churchyard, perhaps pleading to God in his last moments, the same forgiveness Christ extended two thousand years ago to another thief was also extended to that young man.

The original Albany Times Union article is provided below with a transcription.

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Albany Times Union, Dec. 31, 1980, part 1.

Albany Times Union, Dec. 31, 1980, part 2.

Shot by Guard-Albany Stickup Suspect Killed

By Cliff Lee, Staff Writer, Albany [N.Y.] Times Union, Dec. 31, 1980

An unidentified man was fatally shot by a private security guard early Tuesday morning after apparently using a toy gun to rob an Albany sandwich shop of $36.

Late Tuesday Albany police were still trying to identify the man killed outside Big Dom’s Submarine Sandwich Shop at 846 Madison Ave.

Leonard Basile, a security guard for Big Dom’s and brother of the nine-shop chain’s vice president, shot the man in the neck as he left the shop with $36 he’d taken from the cash register after forcing three employees into a meat cooler at gunpoint.

Police reported Tuesday afternoon that a toy gun covered with blood had been found along the route taken by the robber, after he had been shot by Basile.

Det. Lt. William Murray said the man killed is believed to be the same man who robbed the same shop at gunpoint Friday night and early Monday morning.

In the two previous hold-ups, the robber displayed a weapon and forced the employees into the shop’s meat cooler before rifling the cash register and making off with less than $120 from both robberies.

Albany County District Attorney Sol Greenberg said Tuesday the circumstances surrounding the shooting may be presented to a grand jury as early as Friday and the grand jury will make a determination of whether Basile was justified in the shooting of the robber or if charges should be brought against the 38-year-old East Greenbush resident.

Basile, who has worked as security guard for the sandwich chain for the last two years, said he had been patrolling around the Albany shops in the wake of the two previous robberies and had parked in front of the Madison Avenue shop shortly before 2 am to wait for it to close.

Basile said he saw a man walk back and forth in front of the shop, and then enter the shop.

He said the bandit forced the employees into the back of the shop and then went to the cash register and begin taking money out of it.

Daniel Whittan of Loudonville, an employee, told police the man walked up to the service counter, displayed what appeared to be a small handgun and, while holding his coat collar over his face, said, “All three of you, go in the cooler.”

Basile said that he drove his van to the front of the shop and waited for the robber to emerge.

When he came out of the shop, Basile said. “I told him to freeze and he started backing away from me I told him again to freeze and he reached into his pocket and took out the gun. That’s when I fired.”

The single shot from Basile’s 357 magnum revolver struck the man in the neck.

At first I didn’t think I’d hit him. Basile said, “because he threw his hands up in face and I thought maybe he’d been hit with concrete chips from the shop wall where the bullet might have hit and then he began to run.”

Police said the man ran south on Ontario Street, then east on Yates Street and then ran north through some backyards.

He collapsed in front of 800 Madison Ave, police said.

Basile said he climbed into his van and followed the man for a short distance and then lost him.

Police said the man climbed over an eight-foot fence during his flight and Basile said he later saw him running through some backyards and onto Madison Avenue.

“I saw him fall and that’s the first time I realized I’d hit him,” Basile said, but I didn’t go up to him after he fell because I thought he was still armed 1 called police.

The man was taken by ambulance to Albany Medical Center Hospital, where he died at about 8:30 am.

Police said Basile’s weapon was registered and Basile is licensed as a private detective.

Joseph Basile, vice president of Rig Dom’s, said his brother had served as a captain in the Army Military Police in Vietnam and had worked as a private detective before taking charge of security for the firm.

Although Basile was not wearing a uniform at the time of the shooting, he was driving a van with bright gold and black lettering all over it saying. “Big Dom’s Security,” Joseph Basile said.

Basile said his job at the time of the shooting was mainly to serve as a deterrent for anyone thinking about robbing the shop and to let the employees know we were taking an interest in their welfare by being as visible as possible.” Basile said he feels the robber “must have been on some kind of drug, because anybody that was thinking straight would have known it was time to give up when I first confronted him.

The dead man was described as about 5 feet 6 inches tall, with light brown hair and wearing a two-tone jacket.

Police said no identification was found on the man, although some New York City subway tokens were found in one of his pockets.

Police said they were investigating the possibility the man may have been a student at Albany State University.

Greenberg said no charges have been lodged against Basile in connection with the shooting and cited a section of the State Penal Law which states a private citizen may use deadly physical force to arrest a person believed to have been involved in a murder or a robbery and is fleeing the scene of the crime surrounding the shooting Thursday morning appear to meet this category for use of deadly physical force.

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