A good guy with a gun interrupted an armed robbery inside of a Houston restaurant on Thursday night. As the robbery happened, the restaurant patron sitting in a booth, took out his gun and fatally shot the armed robber. He returned the belongings the robber took back to the customers and then left the restaurant. Police would now like to ask the man some questions.

A black man, likely in his 20s, entered Ranchito #4 Taqueria in southwest Houston wearing a black ski mask and gloves. He ambushed ten customers and demanded their money at gunpoint. Many customers dropped to the ground and handed over their belongings. The good guy with a gun shot the robber a total of nine times. One shot to the head was reported to be the fatal shot.

Security footage shows the armed robbery and the customer shooting the robber. That man was dressed in jeans and a grey t-shirt. He picked up the stolen money and other belongings like cell phones and handed them back to the victims. Then he left, along with other customers. By then it was about 11:30 p.m. No charges have been filed against the man but police want to talk to him.

The gun is in question. Was it a fake? Was it a plastic BB gun, as police believe it may have been? It’s unclear to me why police haven’t identified the robber’s gun, as they must have surely recovered it at the scene.

HPD Homicide Division Sergeants M. Arrington, C. Duncan and Detectives S. Overstreet and L. Lovelace said in a report: ‘Officers were dispatched to a shooting call at the restaurant at the above address and observed an unknown black male in all black clothing, a black ski mask, and black gloves had been shot multiple times inside the business.

‘Paramedics pronounced him deceased. Witnesses told officers the suspect entered the restaurant and pointed a pistol at patrons as he demanded their money.

‘As the suspect collected money from patrons, one of the patrons, described as a white or Hispanic male, produced a gun of his own and shot the suspect multiple times.

‘The shooter collected the stolen money from the suspect and returned the money to other patrons. He and other patrons (victims) then fled the scene.’

Is the good guy in legal trouble? Likely not. The police want to question him on whether or not he felt threatened by a gun-wielding robber in the restaurant. If so, he is in the clear legally to protect himself and others around him. He has the right to claim self-defense. The restaurant owner said everyone was shocked and scared.

Pedro Lopez, owner of the taqueria, said he and his employees are still in shock.

He told ABC13: ‘Everyone was scared, nervous. I was too. Some customers were seated here, others were over there, he go the money and was going to leave

‘You never really know what is going to happen.’

One local legal eagle answered some questions about the man’s potential legal troubles. She says he had the right to do as he did and even to leave the scene as he did.

“If you’re justified in shooting the first bullet, you’re justified in continuing to shoot until the deadly threat is no longer there,” she said.

Roe said it doesn’t matter if the gun was fake. The threat was real.

“Everybody in that restaurant clearly believed it was a real gun,” she said.

The customer who shot at the suspect left the restaurant after the shooting and many have asked if he was legally obligated to stay until police arrived.

“Staying there to answer questions, is important. It’s something that as a lawyer I would have advised to have done, but at the same time, you have no obligation to stay on the scene of a situation like that,” Roe said.

It looks as though the man knew his rights under Texas law.

Here is a video clip of the robbery. The good guy is sitting in a booth on the left side of the screen.

The local reporter says that the man has contacted the police through his attorney. Also, this reporter said the man discovered the gun was a fake. As far as the good guy’s responsibility goes, though, whether or not the gun is discovered to have been fake after the fact doesn’t matter. In the moment, the customers felt threatened by a robber at gunpoint.

Houston, like a lot of Democrat-run big cities, is experiencing an increase in crimes, including armed robberies. Maybe a few more of these kinds of stories will start to make potential criminals think twice about committing such actions against innocent people. The taqueria owner calls the man a hero.