‘The Phone Saved My Life’: Florida Father Refuses Armed Robber at Boynton Beach Gas Station, Takes Five Shots, and Walks Away With a Grazed Leg

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BOYNTON BEACH, FL — A 49-year-old father survived an attempted armed robbery at a gas station on South Congress Avenue Tuesday morning after refusing to hand over his belongings to a teenager who had a gun pressed into his back, and he credits the iPhone in his pocket with stopping a 9mm round.

The Boynton Beach Police Department said in a post on its Facebook page that it was investigating a shooting around 11 a.m. at 1610 South Congress Avenue and that one victim was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. That victim, Joseph Leatherman of Dania Beach, told his side of the encounter, as reported by CBS 12 News, which also reported the suspect’s identity, the charges he faces, and how police tracked him down.

Leatherman said he had stopped at a Marathon station near Woolbright Road and Congress Avenue when the suspect came up behind him, pressed a firearm into his back, and demanded everything he had.

He refused. “I told him to get out of here and to leave me alone,” Leatherman said. “He threatened to shoot me. I continued to stand my ground and tell him to leave.”

Then the suspect fired. Leatherman said at least five shots went off. One bullet grazed his leg. Another hit the iPhone in his pocket, which was inside an OtterBox case.

“The phone saved my life. Believe it or not, it happens. Hallelujah,” he said. “I don’t know what kind of armament they put in those phones, but it deflected a 9-millimeter round away from my body. Otherwise, I would be missing part of my leg right now.”

The piece of this I want to pull out is what happened between the second shot and the third. “After the second shot, he looked away,” Leatherman said. “And the second he looked away, I bolted for cover.” Three more shots followed him as he ran. He had already been hit, he was still under fire, and he was watching the attacker closely enough to catch the one instant the muzzle and the eyes were not on him. That is the mindset piece. Stress locks most people in place. He saw a window and took it.

The refusal itself is a different matter, and Leatherman says so himself. He does not recommend confronting an armed robber and acknowledges the danger of the decision he made. I agree with him. A gun in your back is already an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm, and nothing in your pockets is worth finding out whether the person holding it will pull the trigger. This one did. Leatherman is alive because of a grazing wound and, by his account, a phone case, not because telling the suspect to leave was the safer play.

Leatherman is an underwater photographer and self-described thrill seeker who spends his free time diving with sharks, and he believes that experience helped him stay calm. Composure under pressure is built the same way for anyone who carries: through repetition in situations that raise your heart rate, long before the day it matters. After his release from the hospital he spoke with the station over FaceTime from his home, showed the wound on his ankle, and said fragments of the bullet are still in his leg.

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“The more I talk about it, the easier it is to just kind of come to grips with the situation,” he said. “And I’m just happy to be here.”

Police identified the suspect as 18-year-old Christopher Porta and used surveillance video and the department’s Real-Time Crime Center to track him down after he tried to get away, according to CBS 12. He is held in the Palm Beach County Jail without bond and faces charges including attempted robbery with a firearm and attempted homicide. The charges are allegations, and he has not been convicted. The Boynton Beach Police Department said its investigation remains active and ongoing.

Read the original story: ‘The Phone Saved My Life’: Florida Father Refuses Armed Robber at Boynton Beach Gas Station, Takes Five Shots, and Walks Away With a Grazed Leg