Owner dies after shootings at suburban Kansas City gun shop
Published January 10, 2015
#5 In A Month?
Jan. 9, 2015: A Law enforcement officer guards the scene of a shooting at She's a Pistol, LLC, a gun shop in Shawnee, Kan. (AP)
SHAWNEE, Kan. – A gun shop owner died from gunshot wounds Friday after a botched robbery that left three suspects wounded, police said.
Shawnee police said in a news release that John Bieker, 44, died after the shooting at the Shawnee store called She's a Pistol, which caters to female gun owners. Police said gunfire erupted after four men tried to rob Bieker and his wife, Rebecca.
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Authorities said John Bieker and two of the suspects had been taken from the store in critical condition. Rebecca Bieker wasn't shot but sustained minor injuries.
Police said in a news release that the other two suspects, including one who had been shot, fled but were located a short time later on the porch of a nearby home. Johnson County MED-ACT spokeswoman Angela Fera said the injuries of the fourth shooting victim weren't considered life-threatening.
The uninjured suspect was being held on suspicion of aggravated robbery. The hospitalized suspects were under guard, police said.
The website for She's a Pistol describes the store as a "woman-owned personal protection and self-defense training, services, and supplies company."
A phone call to the store rang to voicemail Friday afternoon during business hours
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She’s A Pistol gun store was the scene of a gunfight between the store’s owners and four robbers this afternoon. Three of the robbers were shot, and one of the owners later died.
Four hoodie-wearing thieves entered the gun store that caters to female clients in Shawnee, Kansas this afternoon, perhaps thinking that a store with a female market and a female co-owner might be an easy target for an armed robbery by a large “crew.”
They figured wrong.
The gunfight broke out after four robbers entered She’s A Pistol, at 57th Street and Nieman Road, about 2:10 p.m., according to Shawnee police.
One robber struck the store’s female co-owner in the face, police said. The shooting started after that. Police didn’t know who fired first or how the gun battle unfolded, but it left the other co-owner and two robbers with critical gunshot wounds. A fourth person, one of the robbers, had less-serious gunshot injuries.
The owners both opened fire, and dropped two of the criminals inside the store. A third criminal was injured in the botched robbery, and fled with the fourth and only uninjured member of the robbery crew into a nearby neighborhood, where they sought refuge. The homeowner there locked them out and called 911 instead.
They were quickly captured, and all four robbers are in custody.
Unfortunately, the husband in the husband-and-wife-owned business, Joe Bieker, 44, succumbed to his injuries this afternoon. Becky Bieker survived the gunbattle.
The criminals (however many survive) will face first degree murder charges under K.S.A. 21-3401, Kansas’s implementation of the felony murder rule. They face a possible death penalty case, though Kansas hasn’t put anyone to death in 20 years.
Our thought and prayers go out to the Bieker family this evening.
We’d like to give something to the criminals as well, but intravenous chlorine bleach is apparently frowned upon