Wild shootout inside bodega in Bridgeport

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (WABC) -- A bodega owner spoke exclusively to Eyewitness News about his harrowing experience when four gunmen stormed his shop.

But this owner did not play timid and pulled out a gun of his own.

Chaos erupted with a wild shootout and bullets were flying.

With purpose the four thugs burst into Junco and Son Meat Market.

Masks on their faces and guns in their hands, one of them pistol whipped one employee while another ducked, and reached for his phone. That was before a suspect jumped over the counter, and went for the register.

"I don't know. I don't know why they picked me," said Franklin, the store's owner.

Franklin is the store's owner; he asked that we conceal his identity, as he described drawing his own gun and pulling the trigger only to have it jam.

"While I was trying to get it unjammed one of them shoot at me," Franklin said.

He did get off a shot of his own, which led the four suspects to panic and scramble back out of the store.

"You don't think too much, it's a tough moment. You don't really think just react to it, you know?" Franklin said, "Could have been worse. Could have been a lot worse."

This happened Monday night at around 10:30 at the bodega on William Street in Bridgeport, which has security cameras everywhere.

And while the suspects went to great lengths to cover their faces, one of them seems to have made a crucial mistake.

Wearing gloves as he jumped over the counter, he then took them off when he tried to open the register.

Police are now hoping to match the prints he left behind, while they ask the public for help stopping these obviously dangerous criminals, before they strike again.

Franklin feels lucky he survived and made it home to his young son.

"Any kind of problem you have, that's the first person when you see him you don't remember anything else. Makes you forget everything," Franklin said.