MESQUITE, TEXAS — Violent criminals don’t give a hoot about the welfare and safety of the people they’re robbing. And nothing better demonstrates that than a recent robbery of a gas station off of I-80 in Mesquite, Texas. The store clerk was violently attacked with a gun pressed to him while the robber’s two accomplices stole tobacco products and lottery tickets.
Thankfully, the store clerk, according to NBC – Dallas-Fort Worth, managed to shoot the robber holding him using the robber’s own pistol. In the surveillance video shown in the report, the robber can be seen holding the suspect down with a visible bullet wound in his shoulder. His two accomplices quickly pack up and the clerk was kept subdued for the remainder of the incident.
Mesquite Police Department spokesman Sgt. Joe Smith describes that particular gas station is a prime candidate for armed robbery because it’s a convenient distance from a highway. According to police, this is the fourth time this gas station has been robbed since February of this year.
The robber who was shot collapsed in a nearby field where police apprehended him. His two accomplices managed to escape but Mesquite police have released surveillance footage in the hopes they will be identified and later apprehended.
Lt. Brian Parrish of the Mesquite Police Department puts it best, telling news cameras at NBC, “they [armed robbers] really don’t care about the life of the individual. They don’t care about his life, they don’t care about his family, they don’t care about anything except getting what they want.”
Given such brazen, violent attacks have become so common place in that section of Texas – it only makes practice with a concealed carry handgun all the more vital.