TUTTLE -- Tin Horns Are Us, a small business in Tuttle, has hit several times over the past few months by thieves who siphoned the diesel fuel from the business’s equipment.

In an interview earlier this year with the Express-Star, owner Ricky Sowers Sr. said, “If I catch them, police are the last thing they will have to worry about it. They better hope I don’t catch them some night.”

Sowers had the opportunity Wednesday night when he faced off against two armed burglars and gunfire was exchanged.

Sowers said he went out for a late night snack at a fast food restaurant in Tuttle at around 1 a.m. He passed one of the business’s locations that has equipment and tools on site when he noticed what appeared to be a flashlight beam.

“I parked my car and walked up to the area the light was coming from and it was the same place I parked the Navigator under some awning. When I got close enough to see what was going on I saw someone sticking a screw driver into the ignition switch and I yelled ‘Put your hands on the dash’ and about that same time I saw another person come around the other side and they had a shotgun,” said Sowers.

“Then the shotgun raised up and I had my handgun already drawn, and I heard the shotgun fire and I started shooting back…and at first I thought I hit one of them because I saw them fall down. But he got up and took off again.”

Sowers said the two burglars fled the scene in a red, extended cab pick-up truck, that no longer has the back window and is littered with gunshots from the his gun.

“I worked hard for what I got and I’m not about to let someone come in here and take it,” said Sowers.

The OSBI was called in to investigate the burglary. Sowers Lincoln Navigator was shot several times during the shoot-out,