Smoke Shop Employee Smokes Armed Robber

By Bob Owens | 6:40 PM | December 15, 2014

An apparent attempt at armed robbery in Las Cruces, New Mexico, ended with the armed intruder DRT (dead right there) on the floor, and police looking for answers:

Shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday, Las Cruces Police were called to the D.C.P.S. Smoke Shop at 1025 S. Solano Drive. Upon arrival officers found a man on the floor, inside the store, with gunshot wounds, an LCPD news release stated.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Detectives learned that the deceased man was armed with a gun when he entered the store and was shot by an employee, the release stated.

Additional news accounts suggest that the deceased, 24-year-old Luciano Acuna, had his face partially covered with a mask when he was shot.

The employee who shot Acuna struck him in the head with one fatal bullet in a volley of shots.

It does not appear that Acuna managed to fire any shots of his own.

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com. Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun. He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.