Early Wednesday morning, three individuals attempted to rob a Chevron convenience store in Yuma, Arizona. The first perp walked into the store wielding a gun. What he probably didn’t anticipate was a former Marine standing in line.

When the robber pointed his handgun, the customer deflected the gun with his left hand and punched him with a right cross to the the face. As the gunman fell to the ground, the second perp tripped while attempting to escape. A third masked accomplice, seeing what was happening, never made it into the building.

The Marine detained the armed robber until law enforcement arrived at the scene. The gunman was eventually charged with armed robbery and aggravated assault.

The customer told law enforcement he knew how to handle the situation because of his military training. “The Marine Corp[s] taught me not to [mess] around,” according to ABC-15.

The two other accomplices remain at large.

Lesson of the day: good guys don’t always have to use a firearm to stop a bad guy with a gun, though it certainly helps. This was an example of the right person being at the right place – depending on how you look at the situation – at the right time. And I’m sure the convenience store clerk is grateful this Marine was there.

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75 COMMENTS

    • Unlikely, these types rarely stand in the face of resistance. For all that any of them or us know he may have been armed and just chose not to draw.

    • The perp is lucky he’s not in a coma. And the victim is now armed. And from the looks of the perp’s scrambling accomplice he also felt that haymarker.

      Semper Fi.

      • Even without a firearm, that veteran is still armed; he IS the weapon. It’s all about the warrior mindset.
        Shame, though, that he wasn’t holding a Twisted Tea. That woulda been epic.

      • I’m afraid I’d have to confess that I’d have been wasting my time trying to find a chance to draw. Of course, I can tell just by watching that clip that I could never have thrown that punch, even 50 years ago. Well done, Marine.

      • @Walter E Beverly III:

        “I’ll bet you would have put your hands up and peed your pants.”

        What an unkind, childish, and ignorant thing to say. Do you even know Mark?

        I’m sure that you would have just unzipped and swung your external genitalia, sending the perp into a coma.

      • RicktheBEAR, Ah, poor baby. Do you want a hankie to wipe away your tears? No, I would have pulled my GLOCK and stopped the threat.

    • simple solution.. pick up the hurting perp’s gun and use that on his twisted pals.

      My bet is the Marine was armed, but just reacted knowing his deflection of the weapon would instaltnyh save the clerk, and his fist into perp’s mug would keep him thinking about other things for a while.. easily long enough to pick up his now dropped weapon and turn it on his pals. Maybe he could have had all three off to the hoosegow without firing a shot.

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  3. From the linked ABC-15 article:
    “The suspect was taken to Yuma County Juvenile Justice Center and booked on charges including armed robbery and aggravated assault.”

    • And then released with a pinky-promise to be good and never do this again. The yoot’ was rearrested hours later.

    • SO… illegal possession of handgun, probably concealed in public as he is underage. I think AZ still require the Mother May I Card, which he surely did not have. So, possession of concealed handgun without the Card. but the same creep was rearrested hours later? Same incident, or was he really pushing his odds that day? <aybe they'll keep him in the slammer for a few days at least. Any guesses as to is "ethnicity" or "natilonal origin" or "birthl language"?

      • Tionico,

        Arizona is a concealed-carry and open-carry “constitutional carry” state for people age 21 and over. The armed robber was apparently under the age of 18 thus he will be in hot water because of his age.

  4. That other guy in the first pair, trying to get back out the door as quickly as he can.

    LoL 🙂

  6. If corporations were thinking all this thru properly, they would award that former US Marine special status in all their stores. Free beer and hot dogs, a lifetime discount, something says how much they appreciate him saving their employees and maybe other customers from danger. Some actual cash money wouldn’t be out of line neither!

    Sadly, the usual line is “Our policy is to cooperate fully with robbers and report to law enforcement later”.

    I get it, that’s the corporate legal beagles writing policy.

    Doesn’t make it the right policy for discouraging criminal actions in the future. More like encouraging robbery, pure and simple.

    • “Our policy is to cooperate fully with robbers and report to law enforcement later”.

      LoL 🙂

      That hasn’t been a life saving thing in years. Today we are dealing with a new breed of criminal, a newer generation who has the motto “its not a robbery unless someone [meaning the victim] gets shot”

      With today’s newer breed cooperation does not help determine if you get shot or not, it doesn’t help you any at all. What determines it is if the bad guy feels like doing it or not.

    • They are thinking it through. Injured or dead employees or customers are cheap. Injured or dead robbers are expensive after they, their friends or families sue. The businesses settle out of court, to make them go away, because it’s cheaper than going to trial even when the business wins.

      It won’t stop until businesses routinely defend such suits and win so that the bad guys and their lawyers get nothing as well as lose the time and money they invested in the suit. The lawyers will lose interest as soon as the money faucet shuts off. The bad guys, indignant about being resisted, will want to sue but will be helpless without lawyers.

      • Typically, insurers defend these suits and the businesses have no say as to any of it. Suits cost money, so premiums rise. For businesses, lawsuits are a lose-lose proposition, regardless of the outcome.

      • MS law is on the side of the victim. Down here that Marine would be immune from criminal and civil action, and the perp/perps would be spending a lot of time in a Mississippi slam.

      • This is my thoughts… losing lawyers have to pay all legal fees for both sides. We’ll see how many of these jerk lawyers take on cases like this again.

    • That makes sense. The reason cops frequent convenience stores is because they get discounts and freebies. They get discounts because their presence deters crime.

      • In this day and age, that is pure unadulterated HORSE PUCKY! Those days are long since gone. Clearly you are an anti-police type.

  8. “Doesn’t make it the right policy for discouraging criminal actions in the future.”

    it’s the right policy for the legal beagles. street crime doesn’t touch them, but business costs do. when anything touches the ones behind all this it’s all hands on deck with new laws and no nonsense security.

    • I’d love to read an article headlined, “Counsel for convenience store chain robbed at gunpoint: Cries like a bitch, wets themself.”

  10. There’s no such thing as a former Marine, once a Marine always a Marine, as my former husband explained to me

  12. Pleased it worked out as well as it did…

      • Brandon is not doing so well, snagged himself a couple additional Felonies.

        “WASHINGTON (CN) — A 27-year-old Capitol rioter who is representing himself failed to argue his way out of jail in a bond hearing Tuesday. He accidentally admitted to several additional crimes while he was at it — which a federal judge warned him about at the onset of the hearing.

        “I should note that I did not want to go pro se. I thought it was a stupid decision,” Brandon Fellows said of his decision to represent himself, or appear before the court “pro se.” He admitted that he had mistakenly prepared for a evidentiary hearing, not a bond hearing.

        Fellows’ former defense attorney, Washington public defender Cara Halverson, and U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden have repeatedly urged Fellows not to represent himself. The New Yorker smoked marijuana in Senator Jeff Merkley’s office during the January riots at the U.S. Capitol building, but was out on pretrial release until McFadden ordered Fellows back into custody after he left obscene voicemails for his pretrial service officer and called the officer’s mother. He also missed his court-ordered mental health evaluation.“

        • Sounds like he’s almost as mentally fit as that potted plant in the Oval Office. I bet he’d get along well with the FICUS’s son; seems they have some common interests.

          Let’s go Brandon.

        • Brandon is nascar driver who led a “fuck joe Biden” chant at a race, you dolt. Completely unrelated to whatever bullshit you just made up in your head.

  18. Jeff Cooper would be proud of this Marine. 🙂

    “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.”

  20. That’s an excellent example of what training can do. He didn’t think about WHAT to do, or HOW to do it. In the split second that he comprehend what had changed his purchase to a life threatening situation, he reacted. Well, done Marine. Wish I had those skills. I don’t, so I don’t go to the Stop n Rob at night.

    • I am still amazed that he could be so successful against a perp so experienced that he knew to hold his gat sideways like the big boys. I have always worried that if I were confronted with such a hardened nincompoop, I would still be incapacitated by laughter when he left.

  25. He’s a Marine Veteran, NOT a former Marine.
    I have no military service, I am instead, one of the grateful.
    But I have learned, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.”
    You join the other branches of service, you BECOME a Marine.

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