DALLAS — Sunjung Kim is happy to be back behind the register at Hair Plus Beauty Supply in Dallas one week after a close call during a confrontation with a customer.
“I noticed she stole something,” Kim said. “I told her to return the item or pay back to us, but she was trying to run away.”
Wild surveillance video shows the interaction. First Kim confronted the woman at the front of the store. They scuffled and then began arguing.
In the video you hear the woman repeatedly asking, “$20 for what?”
Kim responds, “Lashes and lash glue.”
Then things escalated even more. Kim grabbed at the woman to try and get the items, then she punched him. She then told Kim that if he hit her, she’d shoot him.
Kim then punched the woman and kicked her. The woman reached in her purse and pulled out a gun. The two wrestled with it and then it went off – putting a hole in the floor.
Customers inside ducked for cover.
“I didn't have much time to think. But I just saw her gun right away. I just dashed her to not shoot,” said Kim.
Eventually, Kim was able to grab the gun and hand it to a coworker. Then, for 11 minutes, Kim restrained the woman until police arrive.
Kim said shoplifting is a big problem at his store - he and his coworkers have put up signs to try to deter people from stealing and have even posted a most wanted list of people, they say, have stolen from the beauty supply.
“It's like a small pieces of item like lash glues. But in our case, we are not the Walmart. We are not the Target. It's not a supermarket. It's like a small size of the retail stores in the community,” said Kim.
Theft takes a bigger toll on his bottom line.
Still – Kim said while he is fed up with shoplifters, seeing his wife and two young daughters' reaction to what happened let’s him know his merchandise is not worth risking his life.
“I don't want them to lose their father. I don't want them to, like, lose her like husband,” Kim said. “I was lucky. Yeah. Thank God. But I wouldn't do it again.”
The woman in the video has been charged with first degree armed robbery and is being held on a $75,000 bond.