Longview clerk narrowly dodges bullet in store shooting

A Longview clerk showed her mettle for the second time within a year Saturday, returning gunfire on an assailant as he fled a Fourth Street convenience store.

"He cocked the gun to shoot (at) me again, and then I went barrel to barrel with him," Robin Adams said in the EZ Food Mart where she and her store manager husband, Jimmy, returned to work Sunday. "This thing happened so fast that nothing was said about money. It was like he came in here to kill me."

No one was injured in the shooting.

At 9:59 p.m. Saturday, Adams was ringing up orange juice and a cigarillo for a customer when man stepped rapidly in front of her register and raised a handgun, firing once.

"He's shooting right at her face," the manager said as he replayed an in-store video showing the man firing at his wife of 31 years. "She's got powder burns on her face."

The video shows the clerk bending slightly at the register when the gun was raised toward her. She stands up, moving her head reflexively to the left while lifting a .32-caliber pistol from a shelf just inches below the cash till.

"I'm just so happy I got lucky and tilted my head," she said, estimating the bullet missed her skull by fewer than three inches. "And the only choice I had was to pull mine out."

The clerk fired once on the fleeing man, striking a plastic glass partition. The assailant's bullet had nicked the top of a pack of Winston Light 100s behind Adams' head and continued through the store front glass.

"When I saw that glass, I knew that could've been the back of my skull," she said. "I can't believe this happened to me the night before the first Sunday in Lent. You never know what you would do in a situation like that."

The redhead gave an indication of her strong will during an attempted carjacking this past summer. She said she had been leaving a parking lot in the 1200 block of East Marshall Avenue in June when a man running from police jumped into her back seat and ordered her to drive.

"I started slapping on him, and he bailed out," she recalled.

That incident prompted her husband to take her to a local gun range for shooting lessons. She became a clerk at the EZ Mart, at 1008 N. Fourth St., in October.

"I don't like guns, but he wanted me to learn to shoot guns," she said. "When I got carjacked back in the summertime, that's when my husband said, 'You are going to learn to use a pistol.' And he took me out to the range."

Adams is in the process of obtaining a conceal/carry permit for her weapon. She said police officers told her the so-called castle doctrine, a Texas law expanding the legal definition of self defense, appeared to justify her use of the gun — particularly since she was handling money at the time.

"The police took it away, ran a check on it to make sure it is clean and gave it back to me," she said. "They said, 'Take your gun back; you're going to need it.' I didn't intend to ever use it, but in this situation he was trying to kill me."

The couple said Sunday that they suspect the assailant had waited for the husband to leave the store.

"I'd been gone about three minutes when that happened," he said. "We've thrown several people out of here recently — troublemakers. ... He didn't ask for no money, he didn't say anything — he came in, pointed at her face and pulled the trigger."

His wife, a New Orleans native, described herself as "a very feisty Cajun."

"I don't like violence, I don't like disrespect or confrontation," she said. "But, my problem is, if you scare me you are in trouble."

She said the full impact of the ordeal had not sunk in yet.

"We went home and laid in bed for two hours with our eyes open," she said. "And we didn't get any sleep. Everybody's treating me like a baby today."

Longview police are asking anyone with information about the crime to call the department at (903) 237-1110 or Gregg County Crime Stoppers at (903) 236-STOP.