Investigators say the 23-year-old man shot by Reno police Sunday may have been responsible for as many as five robberies in the past five days-- all apparently committed with a toy gun.

According to his family Scott DeMars had suffered personal setbacks in recent days--losing a social security check, being forced to drop out of college and facing eviction. Despondent, he said he might try to get some money using a toy gun.

His mother says she didn't realize he would actually carry out his threat, then she saw our coverage of a fatal encounter in northeast Reno and feared the worst.

Police say DeMars walked into the Valley Market at about 3 p,m. Sunday.

The clerk on duty told us he knew immediately what was going to happen.saying he recognized the gunman as someone who had been in the store as a customer and who had robbed him just two days earlier.

The clerk said he was wearing, the same clothes, a makeshift mask and had painted his skin black to further disguise his identity.

When DeMars left the store police were waiting for him. They'd been alerted by a silent alarm. He fled to a nearby yard and witnesses say he ignored repeated orders to lower what officers believed was a real gun.

"The officers are left with nothing to believe other than the subject has a real gun and intends to hurt them," says Sparks Police Commander Rocky Triplett. "They're going to respond with their training and follow the deadly force protocol and they laws of the state of Nevada. They're not left with any choice."

The Sparks Police Department is conducting the investigation for Reno P-D. That's standard procedure in an officer involved shooting, but it turns out they may have been looking for DeMars as well.

Investigators believe he may have been responsible for as many as 5 robberies and attempted robberies since last Wednesday--two in Sparks, three in Reno, including the Friday night robbery at the Valley Market.

It's believed all of the robberies were committed with the same toy gun, but Triplett notes that everyone from the store clerks being robbed to the officers on the scene believed it was real and acted accordingly.