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Real close, unbelievably close call.

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 5:55 pm
by HighVelocity
Sunday night I was in this Ice Cream/grocery store. a short time later there's an attempted hold-up by armed individuals.
This is 5 minutes from my home and I regularly frequent the place. :mad:
Luckily, nobody was hurt, this time.
Posted on Mon, May. 01, 2006email thisprint thisStore employee thwarts robbery attemptBy DOMINGO RAMIREZ JR.
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
HURST — An ice cream store employee thwarted a robbery attempt Sunday night when he ran away from two robbers who were waiting in a bathroom with a hostage and alerted other employees and customers, police said today.

The suspects, one armed with a handgun, escaped the store when they ran out, police said.

No one had been arrested as of today, police said.

The attempted holdup happened about 10:35 p.m. at Braum’s Ice Cream & Dairy Store, 831 W. Pipeline Road.

An 18-year-old employee told police that he was taken hostage by two men when he walked into the bathroom, said Hurst police Sgt. Craig Teague.

The two men were already in the bathroom when the employee walked in, police said.

“The employee was ordered to stand against a wall,� Teague said. “They asked him how many employees and customers were in the store. He told them 10 employees and five customers.�

The bandits told the employee that they had been waiting in the bathroom to rob the store, police said.

At about that time, a second employee walked into the bathroom, and he was confronted by the suspects, police said.

“They tried to grab him, but he pulled away,� Teague said. “He ran out into the store, yelling for someone to call the police.�

The robbers ran through the store and out a front door without firing a shot, police said.

Domingo Ramirez Jr., (817) 685-3822
ramirez@star-telegram.com
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/14474101.htm

Words cannot describe how this makes me feel about my area. My wife thinks it's amusing that I won't allow her to go out alone after dark but she just read this and I could see the wheels turning. I suspect that understands my reasons now.

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 6:26 pm
by JLaw
A very close call indeed. Sad thing is you can't escape this crime, I'm starting to think that it's everywhere no matter how small your town is. Glad you were not there, and even happier things turned out okay for the employees and customers!

JLaw

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 6:43 pm
by nitrogen
I read things like this, and I really really hope that my fiancee decides to get her CHL before something bad happens to her, or someone else she knows.

Posted: Mon May 01, 2006 6:55 pm
by KBCraig
Yeah, it's happening all over:

http://ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=4839953

Police Investigate Stabbing

Late Sunday night, Texarkana, Texas police were investigating a stabbing outside a restaurant.

Police say the male victim was stabbed numerous times by the suspect in the parking lot of the Olive Garden on Mall Drive.

Afterwards, police say the suspect went inside the restaurant.

That suspect is now in custody.

The condition of his victim was unknown late Sunday night.


http://www.newschannel6.tv/news/default ... s&id=10863

Man Stabbed at Olive Garden


Monday, May 01, 2006

A dispute outside a Texarkana restaurant Sunday night has left one man fighting for his life and another behind bars.

Police say 23 year old Datran Jones stabbed a man several times outside the Olive Garden Sunday night.

Investigators still aren`t sure on a motive.

The victim was taken to a local hospital and is listed in stable condition.

Jones is now facing aggravated assault charges.

###

Mind you, this happened in the upscale part of Texarkana, where all the new restaurants and businesses are opening. Of course, it's also next door to Outback Steak House, where this happened:

Outback slayings shock city
Tuesday, September 2, 2003 8:59 AM CDT

Three employees found shot to death early Monday

By JODI SHERIDAN
Texarkana Gazette and

By GREG BISCHOF
Texarkana Gazette

Texarkana, Texas, police are investigating the shooting deaths of three employees at the Outback Steakhouse in the 3200 block of Mall Drive.

Matt Hines, 31, Crissy Willis, 23 and Rebecca Shifflet, 24, who was pregnant, were found dead of gunshot wounds at the popular eatery about 3:40 a.m. Monday, said Texarkana, Texas, Police Chief Danny Alexander.

All three employees lived in Texarkana.

Alexander said the bodies were found in a small office and were sent off for autopsies.

An autopsy will determine how far along Shifflet was in her pregnancy, he said.

Outback server and bartender Mary Gerrard said Shifflet was almost six months pregnant.

"She just told her mom she was going to name the baby ... " said Gerrard.

"My nerves are just shot right now," Gerrard said on Monday after learning of the triple slayings.

"My nerves are just shot right now," Gerrard said on Monday after learning of the triple slayings.

Alexander also said he was unsure if a new Texas state law that protects unborn fetuses would make the incident a quadruple homicide.

"We just have to look at the whole thing and see," said Alexander.

He said the three cases are being treated as homicides, but a motive for the slayings has not yet been established.

Currently, police haven't determined if the three homicides were related to a robbery attempt, he added.

He said there was no signs of a forced entry into the restaurant.

"They are doing an inventory to see if any money is missing," said Alexander.

Police units responded to the scene after they received a dispatch to a health and welfare call about 3:04 a.m., said Alexander.

Police were dispatched to the welfare concern after the spouse of one of the employees notified Bi-State Justice Building dispatchers that she called the restaurant because her husband, who was an employee there, failed to come home.

Having received no answer when she called the restaurant, the woman alerted police.

When police arrived, they found three cars parked outside the restaurant and the business' doors locked.

After gaining access to the building from a restaurant representative, officers discovered the three employees.

Gerrard said Hines was the proprietor, Willis was a "key employee" or shift manager and Shifflet was the general manager.

However, other media reports listed Hines as the manager.

"I've been told all day long that he (Hines) was the manager," said Texas-side police spokesman Danny Presley.

Gerrard said she thinks all of the money the restaurant earned over the weekend was at the location.

"If they wanted money, why kill everyone?" asked Gerrard. "I just don't understand this. It makes no sense at all. It's like a TV show."

She said the three employees were at the business late doing end-of-the-month inventory.

"I'm sure that's what they were all doing," said Gerrard.

Gerrard said Willis was actually there just helping out.

The head bartender, she said, is usually the one who helps out with inventory.

Kevin Tan, who is the head bartender, said he was on vacation and that is why he was not at the restaurant during those fateful hours.

"I don't want to go back not knowing what happened that night," said Tan. "It will always be in the back of my head."

Tan said he wasn't taking it as hard as others were, but he was still visibly shaken by the incident.

"I'm just shocked and confused," said Tan.

Other employees were also shaken by the death of people they not only called their bosses, but their friends.

"It's really really hard to believe right now," said Blake Blann, who has been working at the restaurant for about three months. "I just helped Crissy move out of her apartment."

Gerrard said the restaurant closes at 9 p.m. on Sundays, but on this particular Sunday they were uncharacteristically busy at closing time.

But she said employees don't usually leave that late on Sundays.

"You never know in the restaurant business when you are going to get out," said Gerrard.

She also said there are people who clean the floors every day, but they don't come until earlier in the morning and she wasn't sure if they were coming in at all on Labor Day morning.

Gerrard said she isn't completely dealing with what happened just yet, and she also can't help but think of her job and the jobs of the other employees.

But that wasn't the most important thing on her mind.

"A lot of people were more impacted than I was," said Gerrard. "I just keep thinking of the other people, their families."

Crime scene investigators were still hard at work in the afternoon, carrying out brown paper bags with possible evidence, with family members and employees gathering to console one another.

Alexander said a triple homicide hasn't occurred in the city within the last three years as far as he knows

"This is no way to start off a holiday," Alexander said. "Our hearts go out to the families of the victims, and we will do everything we can to find out who did this."

Police are asking anyone who was at the Outback Steakhouse on the night of the crime and noticed anything at all unusual, to call police immediately at (903) 798-3181, or call 911.

(Two men were arrested and convicted. Both are serving life sentences.)

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 12:43 pm
by stevie_d_64
Can anyone guess what my reaction (has always been, basically) to someone telling me:

"Why do you need your gun in a restaurant?"

That incident yesterday in Texarkana just chaps me to no end...

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 1:44 pm
by KBCraig
stevie_d_64 wrote:Can anyone guess what my reaction (has always been, basically) to someone telling me:

"Why do you need your gun in a restaurant?"
My response: "Ask Suzanna Hupp."

That incident yesterday in Texarkana just chaps me to no end...
Sounds like a pair of mutual knuckleheads:

http://www.texarkanagazette.com/article ... news02.txt

Fight ends in stabbing at eatery
Tuesday, May 2, 2006 8:54 AM CDT

By JAKE BECKWITH
Texarkana Gazette

A fist fight in the front parking lot of Olive Garden escalated into a stabbing Sunday evening that sent one Texarkana resident to the hospital and the other to jail, an official said.

Frank Davis, 24, of Texarkana, Texas, was stabbed multiple times in the abdomen, said Sgt. Shawn Fitzgerald, Texarkana, Texas, Police Department spokesman.

The victim was taken to CHRISTUS St. Michael Health Center, where he was discharged from the emergency room Monday.

When TTPD officers arrived at the restaurant, at 3101 Mall Drive, at about 8:30 p.m., they arrested 23-year-old Datran Jones of Texarkana, Ark., on a charge of aggravated assault.

“We believe it (the fight) centered around a young lady, Davis’ ex-girlfriend,� Fitzgerald said. “We believe it started as a verbal altercation, then fists were thrown and then the suspect produced a knife sometime during the fight.

“The suspect stayed on the scene. He didn’t try to flee. He was very cooperative with us,� Fitzgerald said.

According to Texarkana, Ark., police records, Jones was previously arrested for aggravated assault in September 2003 and for domestic violence battery in the third degree in August 2003.

His bail in connection to Sunday’s incident was set at $50,000.

Fitzgerald confirmed the victim drew a box cutter in self-defense once he realized he had been stabbed but did not inflict injury to the suspect with it.

Fitzgerald said the victim works as a stocker and uses the instrument as a tool in his profession.

Police on the scene Sunday evening said they found the victim sitting on the bench in front of the restaurant when they arrived. Fitzgerald said the police report did not indicate that the suspect entered Olive Garden after the incident.

Steve Coe, executive director of media relations for Olive Garden, said, “We are pleased that the victim appears like he will recover and that no other guests were involved.�

No one else was reportedly injured.

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 1:45 pm
by barres
HV, it wasn't as close of a call as your story apparently was, but late the night after taking my son to Incredible Pizza in Conroe, there was a car-jacking that resulted in a man being fatally shot at a business in the same parking lot.

Man I wish the DPS would hurry up and issue my CHL. This really opened my wife's eyes to the situation in the world around us. I think she's finally committed to taking the class and applying for her own CHL this fall (lots of things keeping her from doing it sooner, anyway).

Link to the story from the Conroe Courier:
Police Seek Killer

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 1:52 pm
by Paladin
I read about what happened up in Conroe. Was spooky to me as I often stop at Conroe late at night on my way back from Dallas.

Of course I always have my USP45, 2 spares, and light with me. I've been more consistant in carrying Fox too. And that's not counting what's in the car.

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 1:59 pm
by AG-EE
Scary...glad you got out unscathed.

BTW, I am duckslayer on the High Road, are you the same Highvelocity over there?

Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 2:26 pm
by HighVelocity
AG-EE wrote:Scary...glad you got out unscathed.

BTW, I am duckslayer on the High Road, are you the same Highvelocity over there?
Thanks. Yep, that's me.

Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 12:53 pm
by Skipper5
barres wrote:HV, it wasn't as close of a call as your story apparently was, but late the night after taking my son to Incredible Pizza in Conroe, there was a car-jacking that resulted in a man being fatally shot at a business in the same parking lot.

Man I wish the DPS would hurry up and issue my CHL. This really opened my wife's eyes to the situation in the world around us. I think she's finally committed to taking the class and applying for her own CHL this fall (lots of things keeping her from doing it sooner, anyway).

Link to the story from the Conroe Courier:
Police Seek Killer
Thanks for the post barres.....my wife and I both took CHL for this very reason....at 57 ...we can't run as fast as we used too...lol.
Also...never forget Luby's! Never!

Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 8:05 pm
by Glockamolie
A couple of months ago, a woman was kidnapped from a Kroger parking lot, taken away in her own car, and sexually assaulted. It's one of the two Krogers that we frequent, about 3 miles from home. About 2 weeks ago, a teenage girl was kidnapped from the WalMart parking lot and sexually assaulted before being released. That WalMart is about 2-3 miles down from the Kroger, and is one we go to regularly. It made an impact with my wife like :o , but I wanted a :shock: . She has a CHL, but isn't as "into it" as I'd like her to be.

Posted: Thu May 18, 2006 9:55 pm
by Nintylx
Glockamolie wrote:A couple of months ago, a woman was kidnapped from a Kroger parking lot, taken away in her own car, and sexually assaulted. It's one of the two Krogers that we frequent, about 3 miles from home. About 2 weeks ago, a teenage girl was kidnapped from the WalMart parking lot and sexually assaulted before being released. That WalMart is about 2-3 miles down from the Kroger, and is one we go to regularly. It made an impact with my wife like :o , but I wanted a :shock: . She has a CHL, but isn't as "into it" as I'd like her to be.
Would this be the Cheerleader from Cypress? :cry: