Maybe the two armed robbers at a Port Arthur, Texas Church’s Chicken thought the chain’s tasty Wild Berry Cobbler was to die for, as they old expression goes. Instead of buying one, they tried something more unconventional (not to mention illegal); armed robbery. In the end one of them ended up buying it.
It all started Friday evening just after 8pm. The duo walked into the store and announced a robbery, just the way they learned it on TV. When the tense armed robbery scene grew too ominous, a good guy who was in the store produced his own gun. Rather than surrendering and escaping, the bad guys tried their hands at close quarters combat. They fared…poorly.
After a brief shootout in the restaurant, the freshly perforated bad guys ran away with empty pockets as fast as their feet could carry them. None of the staff or customers were injured by the menacing armed duo.
Given the easily-followed blood trails, it didn’t take cops long to apprehend the pair of leaking losers. One died a short time later. The other is recovering, soon to be on his way to a jail cell.
The police interviewed the good Samaritan with a gun and promptly released him. Port Arthur is in Texas, after all, not Austin.
Here’s an excerpt from Fox News . . .
“Several shots were fired and both suspects were struck,” the Port Arthur Police Department said in a press release. “The suspects fled the scene and were later located by police officers.”
One of the suspects was later pronounced dead at an area hospital, police said. The second was located at Normandy Apartments, KFDM reported, and was brought to the emergency room for treatment.
The armed citizen remained at the scene, was questioned by detectives and then released. The incident is still under active investigation by Port Arthur Police’s Criminal Investigations Division. It happened just a day after another armed robbery at a Jack in the Box in the same town, Port Arthur Police Chief Tim Duriso told KFDM it was not immediately clear whether the same two suspects were responsible.
The moral of the story: it’s a lot easier for civilized people to pay a couple of bucks for a cup of cobbler than to try to bully and threaten a bunch of innocent people during a violent armed robbery. Because you never know when there’s a good guy with a gun who might just punch your ticket if you threaten him or her and/or his or her family. And that’s the case more and more often these days.
As for the good guy who saved the staff and guests of the Port Arthur Church’s Chicken, we’re glad he survived and hope he’s okay. In the meantime, we anoint him with our “Defensive Gun Use of the Day” title for saving innocents from injury or death. Good job, sir. Attaboy.
Feel good story of the day.
While I don’t celebrate death, just knowing one scumbag has been taken out means he can’t harm anyone else.
This reminds us of the classic question, “What is the best way for a lone defender to engage multiple attackers?”
If circumstances allow, I imagine the best strategy for the defender is to shoot one of the attackers in the head with his/her first shot and then light-up the second attacker.
Hopefully, that first shot–a headshot which the defender might be able to carefully place depending on the circumstances–immediately incapacitates that attacker leaving only one remaining attacker.
Of course that first shot will immediate grab the lone remaining attacker’s attention and almost certainly result in him/her moving and potentially turning to attack you. Then we are talking about a moving attacker who is shooting back at you and you want to get any shot on target as quickly as possible–that requires shooting for “center mass” at that point for most people. And you might as well start rapid fire at that point if that will not endanger bystanders.
I imagine the good guy in this scenario is going over and over in his head how he could have done things differently. I have plenty of range time but I seriously wonder how I would react in a similar situation. Do you just stand there and let them rob the place hoping that’s all they do or do you assume they are going to start killing people and take appropriate action.
“The only acceptable response to the threat of lethal violence is immediate and savage counterattack. If you resist, you just may get killed. If you don’t resist you almost certainly will get killed. It is a tough choice, but there is only one right answer.” Jeff Cooper
The premise of armed robbery is “Give me what I demand or I will attempt to kill you to take it.” Otherwise, why present a weapon? Any injury with a weapon may prove fatal and even if not fatal, the chances are you are going to live with some unwelcome result from an attack. Once someone has threatened me with bodily harm or death, he or she has set the stage for whatever follows and it may well be death for one or both of us. The robber may take me down but I intend to give him something to remember the encounter for the rest of his life if he survives.
If and when it becomes necessary, in and for that moment of deadly force threat that simply can not be avoided:
always start rapid fire. A skilled trained person should be able to rapid fire (at least as a minimum 5 shots) at a bad guy under stress and under fire and place all of their shots somewhere on the bad guys body. If you can’t do rapid fire then do the best you can, but its quick volume of fire you want.
Your defense needs to be immediate and decisive and savage, you need to overwhelm them with fire power and aggressiveness and skill and force of will. Every movement you make and every thought you have needs to be about placing rounds in the bad guy not just firing them at the bad guy. You decide the course of the engagement. You need to be faster than them. You dominate the battle space and make it as lethal as possible for the bad guy. You do not let up, you keep at it until they are down and out of the fight.
If you do not do this there is a good chance they will kill you or someone else. They might kill you or someone else anyway even if you do this. If you screw it up they might kill you or someone else. If you do nothing at all they might kill you or someone else. Those are givens, plain and simple. The question is, are you going to let that happen?
The only way known to mankind to stop and survive an imminent deadly force threat is by using and overcoming the threat with immediate overwhelming deadly force. You need to be that.
.40 cal Booger,
By-and-large I agree with your characterization. I will quibble about one small detail.
If an attacker is very close, has a gun drawn on you, is focused on you, and has not otherwise indicated their intent to immediately pull their trigger, I will argue that you have better odds of surviving the encounter (with minimal physical injuries) by attempting to wait at least 30 seconds or so for your attacker to look away and focus his/her attention on something else before drawing and shooting at him/her.
How often do armed robbers start blasting away at people right from the get-go before their victims even have a chance to hand over their valuables? Only in exceedingly rare circumstances. Why? First, criminals want to reduce the possibility of murder and attempted murder charges which requires that they refrain from immediately shooting people. Second, criminals do not want their victims to fight back and know that many victims are guaranteed to fight back if the victims are guaranteed to get shot.
Thus, there is a dangerous tension at play most times between the armed robbers and the victims where it is actually in the interest of the robbers to give their victims a chance to comply before escalating. That supports the strategy of waiting upwards of 30 seconds for your attacker to look away and focus on something else before attempting to draw and shoot at your attacker.
Needless to say, there are no guarantees. No matter who your attackers are, no matter what their mindset, no matter what their intentions, no matter what you do or fail to do, and no matter how quickly or slowly you do it, you could end up severely injured or dead. All you can do is do your best and hope for the best.
the general rule has been that you don’t draw to the drop, meaning if they already have you at gun point its pretty likely that you will not be able to draw fast enough before they can shoot you thus you should take your chances that they will not shoot you and not draw.
But, that does not mean you should not draw to the drop when the opportunity presents its self. However, there are sometimes when you have to take your chances and draw. Its situational dependent, there is no one that can tell you what to do in that situation because you are there and they are not. But more and more people are starting to need to draw and engage not because they want to take the chance of being shot or not but because if they do not they have no chance at all. In the last two years more and more videos and stories of people being forced to draw have appeared, its becoming a thing where say 5 years ago it was rare. So if you get the slightest chance to draw on the bad guy who has you at gun point already, if he/she looks away for a second or gets distracted or seems disoriented or any number of things that might give you a chance, its becoming that you need to consider that you may need to take that chance.
“How often do armed robbers start blasting away at people right from the get-go before their victims even have a chance to hand over their valuables? Only in exceedingly rare circumstances. Why? First, criminals want to reduce the possibility of murder and attempted murder charges which requires that they refrain from immediately shooting people. Second, criminals do not want their victims to fight back and know that many victims are guaranteed to fight back if the victims are guaranteed to get shot.
Thus, there is a dangerous tension at play most times between the armed robbers and the victims where it is actually in the interest of the robbers to give their victims a chance to comply before escalating. That supports the strategy of waiting upwards of 30 seconds for your attacker to look away and focus on something else before attempting to draw and shoot at your attacker.”
yeah, that’s mostly a myth now. That’s really old school thinking. Today over 80% of armed robbers who are caught are young and they report they shoot their victims anyway even if they hand over whats asked. They don’t go with that old school thinking any more. Its not the old style thugs any more. Its a more volatile younger new generation, their code is it’s not a robbery unless you shoot somebody and they do not fear the police. This change started about 2006, stalled for a bit, came back in 2013 and has been growing since. Today, around 30% of robbery victims are shot before the demand, another 43% are shot after the demand and complying.
It also applies to robberies of businesses. One that sticks with me is this one > https://youtu.be/8dLthevFhm8
The lady did everything right according to the old school thinking to just comply. The robber was not old school, he’s the newer generation of thug that thinks its not a robbery unless someone gets shot. Compliance feeds domination which is what these thugs crave. She handed over what was demanded just like she was suppose to do and he shot and murdered her. anyway.
This one sticks with me because we had a friend a few years ago in the same situation; robber walks into the hotel lobby and demands the money in the register. Our friend hands it over and even handed over the keys to his car and his wallet when demanded. The guy shot and killed him anyway. They never caught the piece of crap.
Speed, surprise, violence of action. Also, remember that crooks deal with the OODA loop issues too. Someone robbing a freaking chicken joint for cash has probably stuck up a decent number of people/businesses in the past. If those have gone off without a hitch, the robbers are likely to get complacent (especially because it’s only serious amateurs that rob such low value targets) and are unlikely to be truly prepared for a shootout. So while they’re stuck in their OODA loop, an honest citizen has a great opening. This is the type of situation where practicing drawing and immediate, accurately firing several times is perfect. There’s a tiny window for a good guy to negate the major force multiplier that is numbers
“What is the best way for a lone defender to engage multiple attackers?”
As quickly as possible
Oh man homie was robbing the chicken joint to support his ailing gramma! Or was that his baby momma…good job dude.
Good job 👍
Well good for him but if I’m in a fast food joint and the robbers aren’t shooting anyone or demanding my wallet, my weapon stays holstered. But that’s just me.
Port Arthur is in Texas, after all, not Austin.
That sums up A town in a nutshell. 👍
Austin is an outlier City Libturd as f**k akin to Huston TX.
Betcha Churches Chicken gives him a lifetime free food ticket/card. 🙂
I like Church’s. Two piece white meat please. (Breast and a wing.) Fried okra, biscuit and a jalapeno. Get between me and that and, yeah, you’re going to shot.
Get shot.
LOL! I purposely stay away from Church’s, Popeye’s, KFC, and similar places. No reason to tempt fate for lousy food.
This gets me in the “Feels”, my week just got brighter.
My mom loved Church’s Chicken. I never cared for it much, myself.
Then again, I love White Castle. So you know, there’s that, too…
Good guy with a gun-2
Bad guys with guns-0
2 down and many more to go. And cue the hand wringing by the anti gun crowd and Bloomberg in 3- 2- 1-
We all know the cops have the good guys gun. We should all donate to a fund me thing and buy him a new weapon.
MLee… I’m sure they do stll have his pistol. Good idea to take up a collection for a new one. Maybe some psych treatment for the citizen as well- right or wrong one must live with themselves afterwards, whether or not the deceased was a scumbag thug.
The living one is going to jail?
In Chicago he’d be on the street in no time.
In March 2020 there was a shootout at Churches Fried Chicken in Memphis Tennessee.
Ledarrius Stokes had been at the restaurant earlier with his girlfriend who works there. Employees were arguing with each other, making accusations, and customers were getting treated badly. Stokes got angry for some reason and left. The girlfriend called the store and told them he was coming back to shoot up the place. The employees locked the doors.
Stokes came back but could not get in because the doors had been locked. So he started shooting at a female employee through the drive thru window. That employee [drew a gun and] fired back. She then went outside to the parking lot and started shooting at Stokes in the parking lot. The two exchanged weapons fire for a bit, then stopped. No one was injured.
It sounds a little like being an armed Churches Fried Chicken employee is a common thing.
Another one bites the dust! Hey Hey
The guy was an idiot. If any of the employees or customers would have been hit in the crossfire he would have had lawsuits filed against him for starting the gun battle. All the robbers would have gotten anyway was a free bag of chicken and maybe a couple of bucks out of the cash register, hardly justification for putting everyone’s lives in the restaurant at risk of injury or death. The cops could have charged him on a number of counts as well and probably would have if anyone but the robbers would have been killed or injured.
Lets face facts in Capitalvania were lawsuits are legal for just about everything the crooked lawyers would have been chasing the ambulances right to the hospital and they know the crooks have no money but the guy probably had a home and a bank account and investments, all fair game for the lawyers.
And of course the newspapers being anti-gun would have had a field day ranting about how people should not have the right to carry concealed weapons.
Who knew so many criminals have lethal lead allergies!
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