Video Shows Moment Bar Customer Casually Lights Cigarette and Uses Phone During Armed Robbery

Police tape in a file photo. Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times

Security footage of an armed robbery at St. Louis bar last week captured the moment a regular customer casually lit up a cigarette moments after the gunman began to rob the building.

Tony Tovar refused to move from his bar seat as the man attempted to raid Behrmann’s Tavern on Aug. 28, video footage shows. According to police, the offender was armed with a heavily modified pistol.

Speaking to KSDK-TV on Friday, Tovar explained why he acted the way he did during the incident.

“I said not another punk trying to pull a punk move,” he said. “I’m so tired of people in south city trying to muscle their way in with firearms or bad attitude or some kind of aggression. I wasn’t gonna comply.”

According to the outlet, the armed robber ordered customers to get to the ground, demanding their wallets and phones. However, Tovar refused to listen to him.

Footage of the ordeal has been viewed almost 700,000 times since it was uploaded to Facebook last week.

The video shows Tovar continuing to use his phone, before the robber attempts to pull it from his hands, without success.

While the robber moves on to other customers in the bar, Tovar takes out and lights a cigarette, and remains seated during the commotion.

Other customers in the bar hold their hands up and either cower or drop to the ground, footage shows. One customer empties out his wallet and hands money to the armed man, while another opens and empties the bar’s cash drawer before dropping to the floor.

“I wasn’t really concerned,” Tovar told KSDK-TV. ”I just had a really good feeling he wasn’t out to harm anybody, he just wanted drug money.”

The armed robber reportedly took off with about $300 in cash, and nobody was injured in the ordeal.

According to the outlet, it is the second time someone has attempted to rob the South Compton Avenue bar since it first opened 83 years ago.

Despite how he reacted in the moment, Tovar said he wouldn’t recommend anybody else do the same in a similar situation.

“It’s probably not in your best interest if they have a loaded firearm, I wouldn’t suggest that to just anybody,” he said.

A man named Kevin Jerome Moore has since been charged in the armed robbery and faces four counts of both first-degree robbery and armed criminal action, reported KSDK-TV.

Store Clerk Shoots, Kills Armed Robber

In a separate attempted armed robbery in Kansas in June, a store clerk shot the robber dead after the man jumped over the counter with a gun.

Deshawn L. Brim of Raytown, Missouri, entered a Boost Mobile store on the evening of June 10 wielding a firearm and demanding cellphones, the Overland Park Police Department said via Kansas City Star. When Brim leaped over the counter, the store employee fired a single shot, killing the man.

Brim was pronounced dead on the scene.

Brim’s wife, who had been outside the store during the attempted robbery, ran to the door after hearing shots fired, KSHB reported. She was being questioned by police.

According to the news outlet, the store clerk, who was not named in the report, was also being questioned by police and was cooperating.

The owner was also at the scene, KSHB reported.

Epoch Times reporter Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.