Houston Smoke Shop Clerk Shoots and Kills Armed Robber

An attempted armed robbery at a Houston smoke shop ended badly for the suspects when a store clerk opened fire, killing one man and sending the rest scattering.

According to KHOU, the incident occurred around 10 p.m. at Happy Daze Smoke Shop last week. An employee and a customer were inside the store when four men in their late teens or early 20s pulled up in an SUV.

“They pulled in. They made a U-turn and they parked right there and he heard them yelling, ‘Go, go, go,'” the unidentified store owner told KTRK. “When they opened the door, they had their mask on and everything.”

One of the suspects was armed with a gun.

Fortunately, the store employee — described by the store owner as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan — immediately reached for a 9mm pistol of his own. When the armed robber pointed his weapon at the clerk, the would-be victim shot three times.

“They ran in. They stepped two yards into the store and he discharged his weapon hitting the guy, And the guy stumbled out,” the store owner told KTRK.

As KHOU reports, the armed suspect was hit in the once in the chest and once in the stomach. Surveillance footage reportedly shows him stumbling out of the store and attempting to get into the getaway vehicle.

“He fell at the end of the car, and then they took off,” said the owner. “They probably don’t even know what happened to their buddy ’cause they just took off, like ‘See ya later’ type stuff.”

The armed suspect died at the scene and his accomplices are still on the run. No money was taken and the employee and customer were uninjured during the incident.

[h/t to Guns.com]