Rootin’ Tootin’ and Fast Shootin’

A Charles Bronson he ain’t, but it’s not because Dallas’ hamburger king and loather of long hairs, Harvey Goff, doesn’t try. After all, Harvey isn’t the sort of guy who gets buck fever. Not only does he go on African safari each year (last spring he bagged a lion), he takes late night pistol practice at the charcoal bags in Goff’s. And if you don’t believe Harvey gets rambunctious occasionally, check out the honeycombed redwood fence outside the Lovers Lane Goff’s.

It was about 11:30 p.m. Saturday, September 4, at the Greenville Avenue Goff’s, when in walked a short, stocky fellow, who immediately caught Harvey’s ever-watchful eye. The visitor’s face was covered by a yellow ski mask and he was toting a 20-gauge sawed-off shotgun.

“Well, it didn’t take me long to figure out what that was all about,” says Harvey, whose highly mobile grin is split by a little space between his front teeth.

Harvey reached inside his shirt and pulled his nine millimeter pistol right off his belly, crouched tightly behind the cash register, and began firing. The intruder dropped his shotgun as he hit the floor, ducking Harvey’s third and fourth shots. Harvey’s first two shots hit the cash register, inches in front of him, and ricocheted off the ceiling.

Within 20 seconds Harvey had emptied nine rounds from his Browning automatic pistol, critically wounding two cash registers, blasting holes in two plate glass windows and disabling half a dozen pieces of furniture, including a baby’s highchair. The robber escaped, along with one unidentified customer, who took his hamburger with him.

Considering that Harvey’s restaurants had been held up four times in the last six months, he wasn’t a man to take such intrusions lightly. Harvey grabbed a .357 magnum pistol off the counter, ran into the parking lot, and began firing at the robber, who by now was bounding away unarmed. The ski-masked bandit alternated hitting the dirt with running, until he escaped Harvey’s shots, which by now were being fired from a two-handed grip. All five shots missed. The robber was not seen again. Admittedly zero for 14 isn’t very good shooting, but for the next intruder at Harvey’s place, odds of one out of 15 wouldn’t be bad.