An employee at a fireworks stand near Houston used a special kind of firecracker in response to an armed robbery attempt that occurred Tuesday night.
The stick-up took place at a Black Cat Fireworks stand at around 10 p.m. Two men pulled up in a green Ford Mustang. One of the men got out and pulled a gun on the employee on duty and demanded money from the store.
But the clerk thought fast and remembered he had something that goes “Boom” in the store’s office.
“They told him we want the money and he tried to talk him out of it, so he said ‘I have to go to this little room and get the money,'” the stand’s owner, Richard Treichel, told KPRC.
The employee came back, but not with cash.
He had a gun of his own and fired it several times at the armed man, hitting him in the face, wrist, and back.
The would-be robber was air-lifted to a nearby hospital and is listed in critical condition. His accomplice fled the scene in the getaway car. The clerk was not injured.
The Black Cat stand wasn’t the crooks’ first stop, police said. The pair had robbed other stores earlier in the evening and reportedly fired their weapon in the process.
“I understand he robbed at least two other places tonight and shot at the complainants,” Sgt. Scott Ashmore of the Houston County sheriff’s department told KTRK.