Dollar General manager shoots and kills robber who turned out to only have airsoft gun, Texas police say

Texas police say an alleged robber died when he crashed his getaway car into a bus after getting shot by the manager of the Dollar General store he tried to rob.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said that the robbery was reported to police at about 1:16 p.m. at the retail store at the 15000 block of Ella Boulevard.

The 30-year-old suspect walked into the store and threatened to shoot an employee while demanding that he open the store's safe. That employee told him he did not know the code to the safe and called the manager of the store.

The manager came out with his own gun and allegedly shot the suspect twice.

Gonzalez said that the suspect got into a gold-colored Jaguar and tried to flee from the scene but instead crashed into a metro bus only about 50 yards away from the store.

The suspect passed out in the car after the crash and was he was transported to a hospital in critical condition and was pronounced dead later.

“It appears he had been bleeding out based on some of the evidence we're seeing inside the vehicle and collided with a METRO bus that was here and eventually came to a stop,” Gonzalez explained.

Five passengers on board of the bus left the scene before police could arrive, and the driver was taken to a hospital as a precautionary measure.

Gonzalez went on to say that the suspect was not armed with a real gun but had an airsoft gun, which shoots nonlethal plastic pellets with springs and compressed air.

“But again, they look very realistic and at the time when somebody's facing that at gunpoint," he said, "they don't know what kind of pistol it is."

He added that police believed the vehicle was involved in another incident days before the shooting.

KPRC-TV reported that a grand jury will decide whether the manager should face any charges over the lethal shooting.

Here's more about the shooting:

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