Gas War Turns Deadly

When I was a kid growing up in Orange County it seemed that every major intersection had a gas station on each corner. Every now and then large signs would appear announcing a "Gas War!" and the stations would try and underprice each other by penny or two (which was a lot when gas was $.30 a gallon).

In Detroit the verbal gas war turning into a shooting war:

Detroit police say a war between two gas stations took a shocking and tragic turn with a station owner shooting his rival who was irate over a gas-price cut.

The shooting happened around 10:45 a.m. at the Marathon station near the corner of Springwells and Fort Street in southwest Detroit.

Investigators say the confrontation started when the owner of the BP station on that corner went to the Marathon station to discuss with its owner why he'd dropped the price for a gallon of unleaded gas to $2.93 per gallon, three cents less than BP.

The discussion quickly escalated into a fight with two more people from the BP station brawling with rivals at Marathon. One man was hit with a baseball bat in the melee. And then, police say, the 51-year-old owner of the Marathon station pulled out a gun and shot the owner of the BP, a 45-year-old father of five children.

In a wild post-script, it appears the BP station is taking advantage of the shooting. While police are still swarming the Marathon station, the BP has jacked up its prices. WXYZ's Bill Proctor reports that as soon as the owner's body was taken away, workers at BP changed the price-per-gallon of unleaded from $2.96 to $3.09.

I'd love to pay $2.96, or even $3.09 for that matter. All the stations around here are running $3.50+ and next week when I will be making two 1,000 mile drives (more about that later) I expect to hit even higher prices.