PARKLAND, Wash. — A man who had his young daughter in the car when he was shot during a robbery was able to take control of one of the suspects, even though he had been shot.
The victim was sitting in his vehicle in the 500 block of 128th Street South in Parkland at around 6:20 a.m. on Friday, when a man and a teenage girl tried to rob him while his daughter was sitting in the back seat, according to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department.
One of the suspects shot the victim, and a struggle then began between the victim and the gunman. A neighbor, Kevin Lipsey, saw what was happening and came to the victim’s aid.
“I was like, what do you need? He was like, ‘I need help, get the gun,’ so I grabbed the gun and ran it over to the neighbor’s porch,” Lipsey said.
That weapon, just two feet from the fight, was an AK-47.
“Full clip, it was loaded and I’m like, wow,” Lipsey said.
Police were called and deputies said when they arrived, the victim was holding the man who had tried to rob him on the ground.
The victim told the deputies the girl had a gun. When deputies commanded her to show them her hands, she pulled out a handgun and pointed it at them.
When she was ordered to drop the weapon, she did so. Deputies then took the girl and the man into custody.
Lipsey, a former combat medic, grabbed a medical kit and helped the victim until medics arrived.
The victim’s daughter was not hurt.
The man in the robbery was booked into the Pierce County Jail for investigation of first-degree robbery. The teenage girl was booked into Remann Hall Juvenile Detention Center for investigation of first-degree robbery and assault on a police officer.
Pierce County deputies say Lipsey’s quick action to grab the AK-47 was heroic.
“We honestly wouldn’t tell anybody to go do that,” Sgt. Darren Moss said, “but what he did probably saved somebody’s life.”
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