Gun shop workers shoot alleged burglar, hold two others at gunpoint

A group of alleged burglars chose the wrong victims to target.  It went down outside a west Houston gun store, leaving two accused crooks in custody and one in the hospital.  There were guns drawn and bullets flying. When the gunfight finished at Full Armour Firearms, two alleged would-be-burglars were on the ground held at gunpoint by two gun store employees, and a third man showed up shot a few blocks away. 

It was more like the Wild West in the West Houston strip plaza shortly after midnight.  “Never want to be in that situation ever.  Thank God nothing happened to my guys," explains James Hillin, owner of Full Armour Firearms off the Katy Freeway. Two of his gun shop employees were working late when they say they saw two guys breaking into their cars.

"Our guys came out with their guns to tell them to stop and they heard gunfire.  They returned gunfire. Apparently one of the bad guys got hit,” says Hillin.

That man turned up at the hospital shot several times and is expected to survive, but two more alleged car burglars were held at gunpoint by two gun shop workers until police arrived. 

”They’re the heroes today.  They got bad people off the street and nobody else got hurt.  That’s a blessing.  One of the guys, they actually had on the ground, had a gun on him and was asking my guys to take the gun off of him,” says Hillin.

Houston police found what they call burglary tools and potentially stolen merchandise inside the suspect's car.  Full Armour has been broken into more than a dozen times, so workers weren’t sure if the bad buys were back.

”Over a period of five years we’ve been burglarized 14 times".  Last week Hillin’s Hobby Shop business in the same plaza was burglarized.  Hillin hopes this sends a strong message to criminals.  “Hopefully it wakes up the bad guys and says don’t mess with guns shops.  It’s not a good idea".

As for the two alleged burglars that were held until police arrived, one 24-year-old man is being charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon. The second guy has been released without charges pending further investigation, and police are still trying to figure out if the third guy who was shot was indeed involved.

The case is being referred to a grand jury to see if the gun shop workers will be charged.