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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A pizza shop employee shot and injured a suspect who deputies say had just robbed a southwest Albuquerque Little Caesars at gunpoint last Thursday.

Justin Brewer, 27, was released from the hospital and booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center on Monday on one count of armed robbery with a deadly weapon.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, Brewer had just held up the store and was fleeing through the parking lot when the employee, still wearing his apron, came outside and shot him. Brewer was taken from the scene by an unidentified man and dropped off outside a Motel 6 near the Big I soon after.

The employee is not identified in the complaint, nor does it mention where he got the gun or if he is still employed at the pizza place. Little Caesars would not comment on this story.

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It’s unclear whether the employee will be charged.

“The completed case will be turned over to the District Attorney’s Office for review,” Bernalillo County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Felicia Maggard said. “No further details are available for release.”

Deputies say Brewer walked into the Little Caesars at Rio Bravo and Isleta SW around 9 p.m. wearing a mask and orange gloves. Brewer pulled out a gun and made off with $9 from the cash register. He didn’t get far.

An employee told deputies he chased Brewer outside and shot at him several times, hitting him once.

“He was scared for his life and didn’t want (Brewer) to try and hurt someone as he ran away,” a detective wrote.

After being shot, deputies say Brewer fell to the ground screaming for help and an unidentified person helped him into a waiting vehicle – leaving the $9 behind.

According to the complaint, Albuquerque police found Brewer soon after outside a Motel 6 near University and Interstate 40.

Deputies say he was wearing the same clothing used during the Little Caesars robbery, but that he told police he had been shot outside the motel – although there was no crime scene or reports of gunfire nearby.

A detective couldn’t question Brewer at the time as he was going into surgery.

Brewer’s mother, Angela Cannon, said her son told her someone shot him in the knee as he was leaving a gas station beside the Motel 6, and that he didn’t know his attackers.

“He doesn’t really have any real enemies,” she said. “I don’t really know what happened.”