Taqueria, Texas customer shoots masked robber dead, returns cash to customer, police say

An armed and masked rob­ber demand­ed mon­ey in Taque­ria, Texas, but a cus­tomer stopped him by bran­dish­ing his own gun, shoot­ing the sus­pect dead and return­ing the mon­ey to the shocked cus­tomer, police said.

Hous­ton police are seek­ing to speak with the cus­tomer who foiled the rob­bery on Thursday.

The inci­dent occurred around 11:30 pm at El Ran­chi­to Taque­ria #4, Block 6000 South Gess­ner Road, Houston.

Offi­cers were called to a restau­rant in the shoot­ing and found a rob­bery sus­pect dressed all in black, wear­ing a black ski mask and gloves, who had been “shot mul­ti­ple times on the premis­es,” police said in a news release. bottom.

Para­medics pro­nounced him dead. The sus­pect, believed to be in his 20s, is await­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion by the Har­ris Coun­ty Foren­sics Lab­o­ra­to­ry, police said.

Wit­ness­es said the sus­pect stormed the restau­rant, point­ed a gun at the din­ers and demand­ed money.

While col­lect­ing the mon­ey, one of the cus­tomers, a white or His­pan­ic male, “pulled out his gun and shot the sus­pect sev­er­al times,” police said.

The cus­tomer then recov­ered the mon­ey stolen from the sus­pect and returned it to anoth­er cus­tomer. He then fled the scene along with oth­er guests.

Hous­ton police are seek­ing help from the pub­lic to iden­ti­fy this patron and would like to hear from them about “his role in the shoot­ing.” Police said no charges had been filed.

Inves­ti­ga­tors have released a pho­to of a man wear­ing a T‑shirt, jeans and glass­es and hold­ing what appears to be a gun in his hand.

Also, a pho­to of his car was released. 1970’s or 1980’s mod­el pick­up truck, no box.

A lawyer rep­re­sent­ing the din­er who shot the sus­pect has con­tact­ed Hous­ton police to set up a time to come and speak to inves­ti­ga­tors, NBC affil­i­ate KPRC Hous­ton report­ed Sun­day, cit­ing police.