Marine Veteran Who Disarmed Robber Speaks Out About Incident
on Oct 25, 2021
During a regular stop to his local gas station, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran from Yuma County, Arizona stopped a gunman from robbing the store. The man, recently identified as James Kelcer, has sat down with Fox News for an interview about the incident.
James Kelcer told Fox News, “I turn around to go and leave, kind of walkout and as I’m turning around I hear the door kind of open real aggressively. At that point, the ‘spidey senses’ tingled a little bit.”
Dramatic footage showed three masked men aggressively bursting through the door while demanding that the cashier give them money.
Wanting to protect his life and the life of his friend Everatt, who was working at the gas station, James scanned the other two individuals and could tell they did not have any guns in their hands.
“I saw two other guys with no other weapons and decided that’s the guy that I’m going to hit,” James said.
Within a split second, as the gunman was walking past him, the heroic veteran lifted up his left hand to grab the gun and with his right hand grabbed for his head. In the process of grabbing for his head, he swung a full grocery bag of Gatorades, energy drinks, and snacks, hitting the robber in the head.
“I was actually going to take control of his head and the gun at the same time, and the bag just happened to be heavy and attached to me and it smashed him right in the face,” James said.
He was able to apprehend the criminal until the police could arrive and take him to Yuma County Juvenile Justice Center for one count of armed robbery and one count of aggravated assault. The other two suspects are still currently on the run and an investigation has been launched into finding them.
James credits his success in this situation to his military training, but mainly his strong value of wanting to protect himself and others around him and being mentally prepared for being in the type of situation that he was in.
