--- title: Silverspring Maryland GameStop Robbery: Boy Punches Bad Guys description: Surveillance footage from a GameStop video game store shows a little boy throwing two punches as gunmen ordered him to the ground canonical: https://time.com/4349315/robbery-little-boy-punching-bad-guys/ author: Denver Nicks article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-26T15:23:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:32:45.252Z og:title: Armed-Robbery Footage Shows a Little Boy Punching the Bad Guys og:description: While carrying a stuffed animal og:url: https://time.com/4349315/robbery-little-boy-punching-bad-guys/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltadf65a339dc20148/6988951a5f570f75c0b2118d/gamestop-robbery.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: A sign is seen outside a GameStop store in Niles og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Armed-Robbery Footage Shows a Little Boy Punching the Bad Guys twitter:description: While carrying a stuffed animal twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltadf65a339dc20148/6988951a5f570f75c0b2118d/gamestop-robbery.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Armed-Robbery Footage Shows a Little Boy Punching the Bad Guys > Sponsored content. 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks May 26, 2016 3:23 PM UTC  A GameStop store in Niles, Illinois, May 23, 2016. A GameStop store in Niles, Illinois, May 23, 2016. Jim Young—Reuters  by [Denver Nicks](https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/)  ## Denver Nicks May 26, 2016 3:23 PM UTC Surveillance footage from a GameStop video game store in Maryland [shows](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/armed-robbery-video-shows-boy-with-stuffed-animal-resisting-gunman/2016/05/25/250dc71a-22b4-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299%5Fstory.html) a little boy with a stuffed animal throwing two punches as gunmen ordered him and his family to the ground while they robbed the place. The family—who have opted to remain anonymous because the assailants are still at large and to protect the anonymity of their son—had been at dinner after the boy’s soccer practice, where he kept talking about a Yoshi stuffed animal for sale a GameStop, [the Washington _Post_ reports.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/armed-robbery-video-shows-boy-with-stuffed-animal-resisting-gunman/2016/05/25/250dc71a-22b4-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299%5Fstory.html) Yoshi is a small green dinosaur and one-time sidekick to Mario and Luigi who has gone on to a successful solo career in later Nintendo video games. The family went to GameStop where the boy, who is under 10 years old, picked out a Yoshi doll while his parents searched for a gift to bring to a birthday party. Two masked and hooded gunmen dressed in black entered the store ordering the boy’s mother and father to the floor, the _Post_ reports. One of the gunmen approached the boy, who tried to fight him off. The robbers made off with cash and no one was seriously injured, though the father said the boy understands the guns were real and was very shaken up by the incident. He carries the doll with him around the home. “He feels like he’s being protected,” the father said. \[[_The Washington Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/armed-robbery-video-shows-boy-with-stuffed-animal-resisting-gunman/2016/05/25/250dc71a-22b4-11e6-9e7f-57890b612299%5Fstory.html)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4349315/robbery-little-boy-punching-bad-guys/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4349315/robbery-little-boy-punching-bad-guys/"},"headline":"Armed-Robbery Footage Shows a Little Boy Punching the Bad Guys","datePublished":"2016-05-26T15:23:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:32:45.252Z","description":"While carrying a stuffed animal","url":"https://time.com/4349315/robbery-little-boy-punching-bad-guys/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Crime","Maryland","video","Mario","robbery","child"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltadf65a339dc20148/6988951a5f570f75c0b2118d/gamestop-robbery.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Denver Nicks","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/denver-nicks/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltadf65a339dc20148/6988951a5f570f75c0b2118d/gamestop-robbery.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"A sign is seen outside a GameStop store in Niles","caption":"A sign is seen outside a GameStop store in Niles","creditText":"Jim Young—Reuters","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4349315/robbery-little-boy-punching-bad-guys/","name":"Armed-Robbery Footage Shows a Little Boy Punching the Bad Guys"}}]}] ```