Venice Store Owner Fights Off Robber

VENICE (CBSLA.com) — A robber apparently picked the wrong place in Venice to hold up.

Security video showed a man in a hoodie entering Simons Market on Rose Avenue and pointing a gun at the store owner and the cashier at 7:17 p.m. Monday.

The owner, Simon Mellor, immediately came up behind the gunman, put him a headlock and began wrestling with him.

The struggle continued outside the store, where Mellor was able to knock the gun out of the robber's hand. But he had a second weapon hidden on his body.

"Put him in headlock and wrestled him throughout the store and took him outside. At which point, he pulled another gun. And eventually, he fled," the owner recalled.

He said even though he realized the robber could have killed him, he had no regrets. "For me, to watch the video and having done nothing would have been unacceptable," Mellor said.

He said Venice has a crime issue, and he was not going to take it lying down.

Police always advise people not to confront someone with a gun.