A 32-year-old man is facing a stack of felony charges after Louisville police say he fired four shots at a woman inside a West Louisville food mart, then tried to steal her purse — all because she wouldn't hand over more money to keep playing a slot machine. Stevon Howard was arrested roughly 90 minutes after the shooting, found sitting near a slot machine at a second store with a gun sitting on top of the machine.
According to WLKY, Louisville Metro Police received a call from the store owner around 1 a.m. reporting that a man had fired a gun at a woman inside Moe's Food Mart on West Oak Street. Police say Howard had asked the woman for more money after she initially gave him five dollars to play a slot machine, and when she refused, he fired four shots in her direction before grabbing her purse, according to court documents cited by the station. No one was injured in the shooting, per police.
Suspect Located at Second Food Mart on Dixie Highway
About an hour and a half after the shooting, Howard allegedly walked into JJ's Food Mart on Dixie Highway, where the store owner reported that he might be carrying a gun and told police he saw Howard place a firearm on top of a slot machine inside the store. Officers detained Howard at the scene and recovered the weapon near the slot machine, the outlet's report states. Investigators also found a live round in the chamber of the firearm, which was loaded with hollow-point bullets and had been reported stolen in Jefferson County.
Dixie Highway has seen its share of trouble in recent months. Hoodline previously reported that JJ's Food Mart at the same address was the site of a drive-by shooting in September 2025 that injured three people. The corridor, which carries up to 60,000 vehicles a day and is flagged in Louisville Metro's 2035 Transportation Plan as one of the region's key commercial arteries, was also the site of an early-August armed robbery at a Family Dollar that Hoodline covered in a piece about a dropped-phone robbery suspect.
According to Louisville Metro's 2024-2025 Approved Executive Budget, a project from Dixie Highway to St. Andrews Church Road will add approximately 5,100 linear feet of sidewalk, including one 190-foot segment. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet planning materials list a Dixie Highway Corridor Master Plan dating to 2013, reflecting the corridor's longstanding role in local transportation planning.
Charges Carry Steep Mandatory Minimums
Howard faces charges including robbery, receiving a stolen firearm, using restricted ammunition during the commission of a felony, tampering with physical evidence, and shoplifting, per the WLKY report. He is scheduled to be arraigned Monday morning.
The robbery charge alone carries significant weight under Kentucky law. First-degree robbery is classified as a Class B felony punishable by 10 to 20 years in prison, and the state requires anyone convicted of it to serve at least 85 percent of that sentence before becoming eligible for probation, according to guidance compiled by FindLaw. Separately, using restricted ammunition during a felony where a firearm is discharged but no one is hurt is a Class C felony under Kentucky Revised Statute 527.080, per the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission. Any sentence tied to that charge must run consecutively to whatever sentence Howard receives for the underlying felony. Receiving a stolen firearm is another charge in the case.
Kentucky's Ban on Unregulated Gaming Machines Remains in Effect
The slot machine at the center of the dispute sits inside a broader legal fight that has played out across Kentucky in recent years. Governor Andy Beshear signed House Bill 594 into law in March 2023, banning cash-payout skill games and so-called gray machines from operating in convenience stores, gas stations, and bars outside the state's regulated gambling framework, according to reporting from the Kentucky Chamber's Bottom Line. That law set civil penalties of up to $25,000 per illegal device.
The ban has faced legal challenges, but courts have upheld it. Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman defended the state's 2023 ban. The Moe's Food Mart dispute involved an unregulated machine covered by the ban.
The Dixie Highway corridor where Howard was ultimately detained remains one of the busiest and most closely watched commercial stretches in the city, even as it continues to draw police attention.
