Broward County Sheriff’s Office(SOUTH BEACH, Fla.) — A group of brothers and cousins from Indiana said their instincts took over last weekend when they fought off a gunman who tried to rob them at a Florida gas station during spring break.
Brothers Alec and Jacob Tanoos and their cousins — Alex and Aric Wisbey — were on spring break in South Beach early Sunday morning when a man approached them with a gun and ordered them to hand over all their valuables.
“It didn’t seem real, it seemed like it was out of a movie,” Alec Tanoos, who was pumping gas when the gunman appeared, told reporters Tuesday. “He just walked up and had the gun on me.”
The incident happened near the victims’ hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They were on their way back from a birthday party in South Beach when the would-be robber walked up to Alec Tanoos and pressed a gun into his stomach.
“When I noticed the gun, you know, it was fight mode, automatically, for me,” Alex Wisbey said.
Surveillance footage from the scene showed the gunman running up to the victims with a what appeared to be a shirt wrapped around his face. He told them to “give him give me everything you got,” but the spring breakers, all in their 20s, weren’t having it.
In a bold move, Jacob Tanoos went to grab the man’s gun and Alex Wisbey rushed to put him in a chokehold. As soon as they managed to tackle the gunman to the ground, a second man approached them and tried to pull them apart.
“Don’t know there’s a second guy in the car,” Jacob Tanoos said. “He comes out and he pushes me off of him.”
The men had been tussling for a few minutes, throwing punches and rolling on the ground, when Aric Wisbey somehow gained control of the suspects’ gun. He said he pointed the gun at the attackers and ordered for them to leave and get a job.
“I finally get my hand on the gun and I jerk it away,” Aric Wisbey. “Once I raise the gun they both took off back to their car and we were just screaming.”
“Those guys, those are sons of somebody,” he added, noting why he didn’t pull the trigger. “Those are fathers of somebody. Those are brothers to somebody.”
The attackers fled in a dark-colored vehicle while the victims walked away with just a few cuts and bruises.
Officers with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office arrested 33-year-old Kevin Campbell, who they identified as the suspect who jumped in to help the gunman, but the other attacker is still on the loose.
Campbell was charged with armed robbery and was being held on $10,000 bond. His public defender Howard Finkelstein could not be reached for comment late Tuesday.
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