Chief Tango sends us our feel good stories again this morning, The first is from Florida where an 89-year-old jewelry store owner, Arthur Lewis, whose marksmanship is showing improvement;
Confronted with an armed bandit trying to rob his jewelry store, 89-year-old Arthur Lewis decided to fight back, pulling his own handgun and shooting the robber six times.
Now, the suspect, who fled but ended up in a hospital, is facing charges while Lewis is trying to move on from the dramatic incident, which saw him fighting with a felon less than half his age – and getting the upper hand.
It’s not the first time Lewis has been forced to wield firepower to ward off robbers. In 2009, according to media reports, he exchanged gunfire with a young man who had also tried to rob the store, but nobody was hit.
This time, the suspect, Lennard Patrick Jervis, 43, of Miramar, was in the line of fire. According to deputies, he took four gunshot wounds to the chest, one to the wrist, and one to the leg in the failed heist.
The next story comes from Houston;
The trouble erupted at a cell phone repair shop in a shopping strip on West Road near Ella Boulevard, when two men initially identified as robbers walked into the store Monday around 4:30 p.m.
Authorities piecing together a series of confusing reports initially said the cell phone store was robbed and the owner chased the suspects to a Fiesta store on West Mount Houston Road. In the parking lot of the store, the store owner reportedly shot one of the suspects, forced the injured man into his vehicle and drove him away.
The initial report said the suspect suffering from a gunshot wound bolted out of the vehicle and later turned up at a nearby hospital. Meanwhile, investigators said, the second suspect was discovered in a residential area.
The 73-year-old homeowner told KETV NewsWatch 7 everyone was asleep upstairs, when they heard suspicious noises initially thought to be storm related.
The homeowner said he grabbed a gun and started walking downstairs, when he saw someone trying to climb through a front window.
With the alarm system blaring, the homeowner said he yelled at the intruder to stop. But when the intruder didn’t stop, the homeowner said he shot the man.
When officers arrived, they found Jorge Ramirez on the front porch, bleeding.
Officers were able to locate the shooter, who made the 9-1-1 call, and reported that he observed an unknown person entering his home from across the street.
The owner of the residence then told police that he armed himself and went to his home to investigate. The owner stated he approached the burglar through a window and shot twice.
The burglar then exited the home and the homeowner fired twice more. The burglar then ran into the backyard, and the homeowner went back inside to call police.
AW1Ed send us our first feel good story this week from Georgia. It actually happened a few weeks ago, but a burglar learned that he needed to do a better recon of his victim when he tried to rob 74-year-old Hilda Douglas;
Douglas said someone rang her doorbell around 9:45 p.m. on Aug. 3. She looked out her bedroom window and spotted a truck parked nearby in the middle of the intersection of Falconhurst Drive and Hewatt Road.
Douglas called 911 and waited.
Moments later, however, she heard glass shattering and then the pottery she placed in front of her backdoor breaking so she grabbed her gun.
According to the report, Douglas stayed in the bedroom but she “could see light from a flashlight getting closer from under the door. When she heard the doorknob turn, she fired one shot through the door.
“She then heard a scream on the other side of the door and the subject fled downstairs. Douglas went downstairs and saw the subject in the kitchen looking for the back door. She fired several more shots in the general direction of the subject as he ran outside.”
While detectives were still investigating at Douglas’s house, Jamie Christoper Lewis showed up at the Eastside Medical Center in Snellville with a non-life threatening gunshot wound to the chest. He was charged with burglary.
Tim Jackson was in the GameStop in the Eisenhower Crossing Shopping Center on Thursday during an armed robbery. He tells us he went in to GameStop to buy a $6 Star Wars video game for his son.
What happened next, he said, was something he’s only seen in the movies.
The suspects Javon Britton and Maryann Davis have been arrested and are in custody until their hearing in superior court.
Jackson says the man, Britton, walked in, “as cool as a cucumber,” saying he was waiting to check out.
Then Jackson heard, “Get on the ground or I’m going to start shooting.”
He was then robbed of $40 and says he hit the deck, keeping his face down on the ground.
Jackson says all he could think of were his wife and kids at home, saying his life flashed before his eyes.
He tells us the robber was only a few feet away, and he could make out that the robber was holding an assault rifle.
Jackson says he bought a gun several years ago to protect his family when his wife got pregnant. He says he’s had a carry permit for over six years.
When the suspect started to walk out of the store, Jackson said, one thing went through his mind, “I don’t want him to do this to anyone else.”
Jackson followed him out of the store, and got to his own car where he kept his gun. He says he got his gun and started looking for Britton.
Jackson says he met eyes with the suspect, and says Britton appeared to reach for his gun.
A man was killed when he tried to break into a home on Brooklyn Circle early Saturday, according to the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office.
Theodore Horton, 23, who was homeless, was shot to death at a house on the 300 block of Brooklyn Circle in Hope Mills, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Deputies were called to the scene about 1:45 a.m. None of the residents inside the house were injured, officials said.
Technicians confirmed Horton’s identity through fingerprints and tattoo markings, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Deputies were called to a shooting at the Saddle Ridge Apartments on Woodforest just before 7am. When they arrived, they found out it was a home invasion.
Sgt. Gary Harrison says during that home invasion, the man who lives inside the apartment shot one of the suspects in self-defense. That young man was airlifted to Ben Taub Hospital.
Harrison tells us there were three suspects involved. One other was taken into custody. The third fled the scene once gunfire erupted.
At about 6 a.m., the resident noticed a truck parked near his house with one man inside and another standing on the street, according to Harpham. After the resident attempted to take a picture of the truck’s license plate and call 911, the man outside the car attacked the resident and a fight broke out, Harpham said.
The man in the truck allegedly attempted to scare off the resident by slowly driving toward the two fighting men, according to officials. The resident’s wife came out with a handgun after hearing the fight and fired a warning shot. As the truck continued toward the men, she fired another shot that hit the suspect in the leg. Evidence at the scene indicated that the two men may have been burglarizing cars, according to Harpham.
Harpham said the male resident and his wife are not going to press charges.
“It’s just a bad experience for them, and they just want everything to go away,” he said.
They’ll probably just all sit in a drum circle and share a doobie after the suspect recovers. Only in California do you feel guilty about someone who beat your ass in the street in front of your house.
I know it’s been a few days since our last feel good stories, hopefully you’re not too depressed from the shortage, but here you go, one from Louisiana;
“In this neighborhood we don’t have any streetlights. We haven’t had any since Katrina,” one neighbor said.
It can be tough to see on West Homestead Drive, but a couple sitting outside a home in the 1800 block suddenly saw a masked man with a gun. Neighbors believe the intruder must have used an empty lot behind a home on East Homestead to get as close as possible and then jumped the fence.
Police said the gunman forced the couple inside the home where three girls, ages 6, 13 and 14, were inside. The wife managed to get away. Neighbor Larry Carter picks up the story from there.
“The lady must have ran straight out the house when the guy came inside, so she ran
down here by us,” Carter said. “‘Come help me come help me,’” he said, describing the woman’s frantic actions. “We all ran down there. By the time we got back down there the police had came.”
What happened in those minutes inside the home happened quickly. Neighbors said the woman’s husband refused to be a victim.
“He must have had his gun close by. He turned around and opened fire on him before he could shoot him,” Carter said. “Her husband was standing in the doorway and said ‘I shot him.’”
Jerry sends us a link to our first story today from Phoenix;
Investigators say it started after the suspect approached a woman getting out of her car across the street from Loma Linda Elementary School.
“He asked if he could borrow the phone, she said no because she didn’t know who he was, apparently he grabbed her and threw her out of the car and on the ground,” said Sgt. Tommy Thompson.
The carjacking suspect got into the drivers seat of the victims vehicle. The victim’s neighbors, a husband and wife, saw what was happening and tried to intervene. The female neighbor opened the passenger’s door and as the suspect pulled away the SUV knocked her over, injuring her head.
That’s when the male neighbor pulled out a gun and fired several times at the carjacker.
The suspect drove for several blocks before crashing into a wall and tree, he was taken to the hospital where he later died.
Again, Chief Tango sends us our first feel good story of the week. This one is from Texas, where a fellow learned too late the first rule of gun control;
Investigators said the male, armed with multiple weapons, entered the home that had three adult males inside, according to the release.
Upon entering the home, the three men struggled with the intruder and managed to take one of his weapons and use it against him, according to the release.
Investigators are still working the case to determine if there was anyone else involved in the robbery.
No charges are expected to be filed against the man who killed the robber, said J.P. Rodriguez, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman.
The Texas “Castle Law” allows a person to legally use deadly force when confronted with imminent danger while inside their home, business or vehicle.
The first rule of gun control, of course, is that you should always keep control of your gun.
This morning’s feel good stories from Chief Tango start out in Georgia;
The homeowner, Kenny, who’s asked us not to use his last name, tells Channel 3 he was fixing a jammed door in the back of the house when two men came in through the front door.
“I heard something behind me and I turned around and the guy had a gun to my face!” Kenny said.
That’s when he says adrenaline took over. Kenny tackled the man holding the gun to try to get it away.
“I wasn’t letting go of that gun. I just held onto it. I wasn’t going to let go,” Kenny added.
His daughter watched her Dad fight off the men before the gun went off twice inside their home.
“He was on top of him with my Dad and my Dad said, ‘I’m not letting go of the gun’ and the guy got shot in the middle of all of it,” she said.
The men took off out the front door, ran down the street back to that gold Crown Victoria before driving off.
A few minutes later, deputies say Marlon Dewayne Jones walked into Memorial Hospital with a gunshot wound in his upper leg.
He’s now charged in connection with the home invasion.
Witnesses told Action 7 News they heard gunshots Friday morning.
Police said two residents were the victims of a home invasion by two or three armed assailants. They said one of the victims shot one of the assailants.
One of the bullets went through a woman’s window, right over the bed where she was sleeping.
“I’m still kind of shaky,” said Jae Jalbert. “If I had sat up, I would not be here.”
Jalbert said she heard commotion at about 6 a.m.
“I heard three consecutive shots … the fourth went through my window,” she said.
According to investigators, just after noon on Thursday, an attempted armed robbery occurred at Innovative Optique on W. Brown Deer Rd. Officers responded to a report of shots fired. When they arrived, officers determined that an attempted robbery had occurred. They found one person dead in the store.
Officials say during the course of the robbery, shots were exchanged between the armed robber and an armed employee of the store. The store employee was not hurt and the robber was fatally wounded.
The deceased is 22-year-old Joshua Drake of Milwaukee.
Drake’s father, who did not want his face on camera, told FOX6 News Joshua left their home nine months ago because the family didn’t like the direction he was heading.
