The attempted robbery took place around 4 a.m. Sunday at a Mobil station in Oakland Park, Florida, about four miles north of Fort Lauderdale, where brothers Aric Wisbey, 21, and Alex Wisbey, 23, and their cousins, brothers Jacob Tanoos, 27, and Alec Tanoos, 21, had stopped for gas. The four were driving back from Alec's birthday celebration in Miami Beach.
The surveillance video shows a man with a dark T-shirt covering his face and holding a gun in his hand attempt to intimidate the young men as they are filling their car's gas tank. According to Gina Carter, a spokesperson for the Broward Sheriff's Office, the gunman pointed the gun at Alec's ribs and said, "Give me everything you got," the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
"When I noticed the gun, it was fight mode automatically for me," Alex Wisbey told the outlet.
"I was not going to let my family get injured at any point," he said. "I knew there was a possibility I could be shot and killed, but it's my family. We'd die for each other."
The video footage shows the young men tackling the gunman to the ground as he attempts to fight back. The gunman's accomplice, who has now been identified by police as 33-year-old Kevin Campbell and who was most likely lurking in a black Hyundai Sonata at the time, rushes over and tries to pull the young men off the gunman.
At one point, the gunman lost his grip on the gun, and Aric picked it up after it fell to the ground.
"After we were standing and I had him at gunpoint, he did raise his hands, and he was telling me, ‘Calm down, like, give me the gun, and we'll just leave,''' Aric told the Sun-Sentinel.
The gunman and his accomplice eventually back off, get into the Hyundai Sonata and drive away as the four men appear to yell at them. However, the victims managed to record the vehicle's plate number.
Shortly after the attempted robbery, Fort Lauderdale police showed up at the address of the registered owner of the Hyundai and saw Campbell leaning against it.
"When law enforcement approached, Campbell ran," Carter recently told the Sun-Sentinel. "Fort Lauderdale police's K9 found Campbell hiding in some bushes," she added. Campbell was arrested on multiple charges, including robbery with a firearm.
"This is really scary," Carter said. "We would never encourage anyone to do this [fight back against a gunman], but fortunately for them, they're fine. They survived."
The gunman is still currently on the loose. He is described as being about 6 feet tall and around 210 pounds with dreadlocks.
The Broward Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to Sputnik's request for comment.