You’re in a crowded bar waiting for the band to take the stage. That’s when three masked men with guns burst in, put a round in the ceiling and shout instructions for everyone to get on the floor and give up their wallets. Yes, it sounds like a scene from a bad 1970s cop movie, but it actually happened in Chesapeake, Virginia Friday night. Concealed carry in bars, though, is legal in the Old Dominion and now the local criminal community is light one bad guy…
From wvec.com:
Patrons said several men burst into the bar and told everyone to hand over their money.
Steve Perry, who was with a friend, said one man held a gun to his head.“I told him please don’t shoot me because I have a newborn son,” he related.
That’s when the gunman fell to the floor.“He got shot right in front of me,” Perry added.
Police say Raymond Davis, 21, of Norfolk was killed and that he was one of the robbers. That led to chaos inside the bar and bullets started flying.
One patron was wounded as he threw pool sticks at the robbers in hopes of distracting them.
One report said that the patron with the gun retrieved it from his car, coming back into the bar before punching Davis’s ticket. Which seems unlikely; probably a false after-action report, but the full picture will certainly become clearer with time.
Also to be determined is whether the patron was drinking. Because while bar-carry is legal, imbibing while you’re doing it isn’t.
The other two robbers escaped, but it seems likely that Davis’s list of known associates will yield plenty of leads.
There’s no way to know how many lives the gun toter may have saved. Or if he started something that wouldn’t have otherwise happened. But given the description of the robbers’ actions, it’s hard to think he didn’t have real cause to suspect his life was in danger.