Armed Robbery Suspect Pulls Trigger with Gun Pointed at Victim's Head, But Nothing Happens

It reads like a scene from a movie. Thursday evening along the 10700 block of West Keefe Avenue. A woman turns onto the street and encounters a horrific scene: Two men lying in a driveway and two other men standing over them with guns and wearing masks.

"What’s going on?" she shouts from her car. The robbers flee.

But not before one of the men pointed the barrel of a gun against the head of one of the men. “I should kill you,” he said, the victim recounted later to Wauwatosa police.

The masked man pulled the trigger. But nothing happened. The victim told police later that he was so scared he urinated. “In hindsight, he believed the gun was empty of bullets,” the police reports say.

Police are still seeking the suspects, who then ran away.

According to the police report:

On Thursday at 7:43 p.m., the two victims, ages 28 and 25, had arrived at a home along Keefe Avenue to visit the first man’s cousin. People were in the house playing video games and watching a pregame show for the basketball playoffs. As the two men left, two suspects appeared from the wooded area across the street with masks or scarves covering their faces and both were armed with semi-automatic handguns. 

“You know what time it is,” one of the suspects said and ran closer.

The first man thought he was going to get shot so he lay down on the driveway and placed his arms to his side, after giving his wallet and iPhone to the suspect. The suspect also took $1,986 in cash from the man’s pocket as he pointed a handgun at the man’s head from a foot away.

At that point, the woman drove by in her car and slowed down, asking what was going on. The first man said one of the suspects said, “They see us, shoot ‘em.” He said the suspect pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger, and he heard a click, but nothing happened. The suspects then turned and ran. The victim claimed the cash was supposed to be used toward his graduate school bill. He thought someone in the house had set them up to be robbed.

The woman who witnessed the scene told people she had made a right turn onto Keefe Avenue when she saw a man standing in the driveway pointing a handgun at a suspect lying on the ground. She said it almost seemed like a joke, and she thought they were playing. The suspect was pointing the gun close to the man’s head. She slowed down, and the suspect turned and looked at her.  She said one of the suspects got into a blue colored pickup truck and sped off.

The second man told police the suspects took $300 and his ID card and cell phone. Both suspects were described as black males in their 20s, 6 feet tall with thin builds, white T-shirts and white scarves covering their faces from the bottom of their eyes.

Police are still investigating.