Tampa Bay, Florida tattoo artist Benny Perez is one unlucky and at the same time, lucky guy. This past Saturday, Perez was working at K&B Tattooing, on Tampa’s Busch Boulevard, when three men: Antonio Madden, Dominic Baldwin and Melvin Monroe-Wilson came in for a tattoo estimate. Perez helped them out and they left, only to return several minutes later with a gun.
The three men then proceeded to rob the place blind: jewelery, cash and a rifle were all taken. They tied up Perez and his girlfriend, Erica Grulke, who happens to be three months pregnant. When the men left the tattoo shop, Grulke managed to wriggle free from the rope and then untie Perez. Perez in turn, grabbed his piece and took off after the robbers. When he caught up with the three men, Perez fired a shot at them. One of the men returned fire from roughly six-feet away and caught Perez in the head.
Miraculously, the robbers were apprehended and Perez survived. He spent a remarkably modest four hours at the hospital before being released. Perez then went on to say:
“Thank god I’m alive. I got a kid to take care of.”
Yes, very true. You do have a kid to take care of, Benny. Which makes me wonder why the hell you went after the three dudes in the first place. Bad call, Benny Perez. I know the guy risked his life and all, and that this is no joking matter, but I sure as hell hope that he tattoos better than he deals with potentially life threatening situations. However much money those three guys got away with it, it isn’t worth risking your life over, especially when as Perez says, he has a kid to take care of. Not to mention that I don’t even think Perez owns K&B tattoo shop – at least I can’t find anything that says he owned the shop rather than simply worked at it.
Well…regardless of what I think of the efforts that Perez made, it’s good that everything ended okay. Antonio Madden, Dominic Baldwin and Melvin Monroe-Wilson are all currently sitting in jail, awaiting sentencing. Don’t mess with tattoo artists, chumps.