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A Texas store owner is still reeling after getting into a shootout with two would-be robbers.
Tien Tran, 57, recalled the moment two masked, hooded men burst into Cash4Gold in Mesquite last Thursday.
“It’s a quick three seconds. No time to think, it’s all reaction,” Tran told FOX 4.
One of the men pulled out a gun, which prompted Tran to take his own handgun out from the back of his pants and open fire, surveillance footage of the incident showed.
Tran fired a warning shot, and the suspect fired three rounds in return before fleeing – leaving bullet holes in the walls and a display case, WFAA reported.
No one was injured, but the shooting also tore a hole in Tran’s golf bag and shattered his sunglasses, which he only noticed the next day at a golf tournament with his teenage son.
“Luckily, it wasn’t me [that was hit],” Tran told FOX 4.
“Everything was slow motion to me. I saw the mask, I saw the hoodie, I saw the gun come out,” he recalled of the exchange of fire.
No one has been arrested for the attempted robbery, but police assured the public that they are on the hunt.
“Our hope is that someone sees these videos, sees these images and recognizes, especially the suspect that doesn’t have his face covered,” Lieutenant Brandon Ricketts told FOX 4.
Thursday’s incident was not the first time Tran was forced to defend his business: In July 2019, two other armed, would-be culprits entered the store, forcing Tran to fire a warning shot that scared them off, old surveillance footage showed.
In January this year, Tran was also interviewed by WFAA about a $2 million jewelry heist at the nearby Town East Mall.
At the time, he said that he recently had $75,000 of inventory stolen from his car when he stopped at a store on the way home.
“I think the cash business, the gold business, seems to be an easy target for them, or so they think, but it’s not,” he said to FOX 4 of the two incidents.
Even so, he has no plans to move the business.
“[My survival was] part luck, part awareness, part prep. It all adds up,” he said.
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