A California university student is lucky to be shaken but unharmed after a mugger shot at him during a robbery — but the bullet was deflected by his iPhone, police said.
Police said the victim was approaching the front door of his apartment near the California State University, Fresno at around 11 p.m. Monday when a gunman approached him from behind, pulled out a handgun and tried to grab the student's computer bag.
During a struggle over the bag the gunman fired at the 24-year-old, but the bullet "skipped off" the iPhone in his pocket, police said.
"He said 'It saved my life,'" the graduate student’s roommate, who did not want to be identified because the gunman is still on the loose, told NBC affiliate KSEE in Fresno.
"The jeans was tore and he showed me his iPhone ... and I saw the bullet was really clear on it. So it saved his life," he told the station.
The victim was not identified. The gunman made off with the computer bag, which had an HP laptop inside, police said. Police described the suspect as around 5 feet, 10 inches tall and 170 pounds, and said he was wearing a mask.
After surviving the frightening mugging, the victim packed his stuff and moved out, and has no plans to return to Fresno, his roommate told KSEE. The apartment building where the robbery occurred is near campus.
Fresno police Lt. Joe Gomez said he couldn't recall another time in Fresno where a bullet was deflected by a cell phone.
