Posted on 07/08/2002 12:47:42 PM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Ngoc Thanh Le knew his line of work was dangerous so that's why, a family member said, he kept a handgun behind the register of his westside convenience store. The man that patrons and friends called Papa was forced to use the gun Monday morning when an armed robber tried to hold up the mom and pop store in the 9800 block of Westpark. Le was critically injured in the gun battle. The robber, whose identity was not available, died at the hospital after he tried to flee in his car and wrecked it just a block away. "Every store owner knows this is going to happen one day," said Le's brother-in-law Khai Nguyen. "It's a risk to do this kind of job. But it's the only way to make a living."
Nguyen said he had been at the store just minutes before the 8:45 a.m. shooting, getting his regular cup of coffee before heading off to work. Five minutes after he left, someone from a neighboring store in the strip center called him to tell him his brother-in-law had been shot. Two people at the West Park Food Store tried to help Le. A beer distributor, Mike Harris, was making his weekly stop at the store. He said he and the robber were the only ones in the store with Le.
Harris said he noticed the robber as he and Le chatted about a beer order. "He looked like he was getting ready to buy something," Harris said, as he sat on the rear fender of his Coors minivan smoking a cigarette, still shocked by what he had witnessed. Harris said he got out of the would-be customer's way and was just feet outside the door when he heard several pops and saw the front glass door shatter. "When the glass broke I knew they were shooting at each other," Harris said. "I ran and the guy came out and squatted down. He fell down. I went in there and the old man was lying on the ground."
Outside, Dorothy Davis, who said she was a regular customer, saw the robber start moving after he fell to the ground so she ran to a bank of pay telephones across the parking lot and called the police. "We thought the robber was dead," Davis said. "But he got up and disappeared. We didn't want to follow him because he had the gun in his hand." Before the robber bolted around the corner to his car, Davis said, he held his stomach and pumped off one more round into the store. Davis said it looked as though the man was in a lot of pain and could barely hold onto the the gun dangling in his hand.
Davis and her husband live in the neighborhood and stop by the store four or five times a week. She said Le was "very nice" and friendly with the customers. "He and his wife were in the process of building a house," Davis said. As crime scene tape roped off much of the parking lot, motorists stopped for a traffic light on Westpark at Tanglewilde and curiously asked what had happened. Some knew Le and asked about him. When one woman in a blue sedan was told that Le was in bad shape, she cried out "Oh no," covered her mouth with her hands, then drove off.
Around the corner on Tanglewilde about a quarter of a mile away, the street was cordoned off where the robber wrecked his Thunderbird. When paramedics arrived at that scene, the man was sitting upright, not moving, in the driver's seat. As he was removed from the car, the front of his white striped T-shirt was covered in blood. Police said the man was pronounced dead at Ben Taub Hospital. Le was undergoing surgery today and was listed in critical condition.
He would be dead had he not been ready, willing and able to defend himself.
Wow. Wonder who's going in the Afternoon session?
Suitable ending except for the injured store owner.Fortunately his aim was better than the freelance socialist's. True "gun control" in action.
-Eric
Another one bites the dust (Huh)
Another one bites the dust
An' another one's down
An' another one's down
Another one bites the dust!
They won't be blaming him in the Houston area. Robbers are shot here on a pretty regular basis, especially at these sole proprietor stores.
You would think the robbers would eventually catch on and only target the franchise shops where company policy prohibits firearms, but they don't.
Police: Robber Killed In Convenience Store Shootout (Channel 2, Houston)
Link to a good video report at the link above. Also, the story adds this detail:
"...The gunman later died at the hospital. Lee is critical condition, suffering from two gunshot wounds.Lee's family said that the store had been robbed just a few months ago.
In that incident, Lee also shot and killed another robbery suspect who had pulled a knife on a clerk's wife, authorities said."
A twofer. I'm impressed. Maybe the store should put an aircraft kill-type tally on the door, with silhouettes of badguys in a circle with a slash through it.:)
On the bright side, at least here in Texas, Le doesn't have to worry about some californicator liberal arresting him out of his hospital bed for defending himself and his property!
9mm Texas CCW bump!
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