TULSA -- A Tulsa liquor store owner is speaking out after shooting an armed robber.
It happened last Thursday night at Forest Acres Liquor Store. The owner, Tina Ring says the suspect, Tyrone Lee, was a regular customer who had just come in earlier that day.
Ring recalled, “Wednesday, he came in and bought a bottle and he left it on the counter. He never did come back and pick it up. Then, an hour and forty minutes before the robbery, he came in and I recognized him and I greeted him and I gave him back his bottle.”
She believes Lee was scoping out the business so he could return later wielding a gun and wearing a mask.
Walking through the motions, Ring said, “He’s got the shotgun pointed at me as he’s getting the money out.”
Lee got the money and walks out. Ring and her daughter, Ashley, got their weapons out of the drawer and duck behind the counter, thinking Lee is gone. But he came back in, and Ring immediately started firing from behind the desk.
She said, “I remember getting up and shooting him at this point, and then I went around the counter back this way.”
Ring shot Lee in the leg and he stumbled away before grabbing her hand to take her gun away. She noticed blood coming from his mouth.
The mother said, “All I could think of was just, ‘Don’t shoot Ashley. Don’t shoot Ashley’ . . . As soon as I got away from her and I knew my arm was away from her, I started just pulling the trigger and pulling the trigger and pulling the trigger and pulling the trigger, making sure that it was empty."
During the struggle, her daughter shot the suspect in the back. He managed to get the gun away from Ring and struck her over the head. The struggle ended, the suspect left, and the mother and daughter ran out to the house next door.
Although many are calling Tina Ring a hero, she says she might not be alive today if it wasn’t for her daughter. “She’s my hero. She saved my life.”
Tyrone Lee is still in the hospital in a medically induced coma. He is also accused of robbing 10 other businesses.
On Monday, Feb. 27, Lee was charged with 10 counts of Robbery with a Dangerous Weapon.
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