My Brush with an Armed Robber. (September 2008)
Well it finally happened! I was in the Garage were I work the night shift as a cashier, serving some regular customers when I noticed a guy with a hoodie on come into the shop. I am normally not backwards in coming forward and considered barrelling him for wearing the hood, but I thought I would leave it till I had finished serving the customers I was dealing with.
I continued to observe the guy with the hood who was mucking around in a drinks fridge getting some drinks. While some alarm bells had gone off, I continued.
When the couple I had been serving left the guy come toward the counter but was stooped down carrying some drinks in his left arm.
When he reached the counter, he raised his head and I saw his face was completely covered except for a small gap for his eyes. I thought oops here we go, He then produced a knife in his right hand and said open the till and dropped the drinks and produced a rubbish bag to put the money in.
I procrastinated for a minute while I considered my options, as we have a baton behind the counter which I could have reached. But the guy had me hemmed in behind the counter and as he had a knife about 200mm (8”) long, I decided to cooperate and opened the cash register and slowly began putting the notes into the bag.
He then turned around and opened the draw for the cigarettes, and began putting them in the bag He told me to give him a hand, I just did it very slowly, he said can't you go faster. I still just kept going slowly.
He then thought he had enough and stood up and said several times, is the door open (the front door was shut but not locked), I said yes but was considering whether I should lock the door, but to lock it the door has to fully open then close and lock so I flagged that idea. The guy said, back up back up to me, and as I backed out of the shop I grabbed the remote for the door and the cordless phone.
He bolted out the door, with me not far behind him. I heard him run round the back of the garage and jump over the fence.
The next thing I heard was a black car drive off from across the road, obviously his accomplice was waiting and were they had sat watching the garage.
I then rang 111 for the Police who arrived quite quickly and then I was taken to the station for three hours to give a statement and to be hand and foot printed.
They Police were in full swing as only a few hours earlier the same guys had robbed a video store across the other side of town.
I returned to the garage and carried out a stock audit and see how many smokes he got. The boss said the next day it was about $3000 in cash and smokes.
The next two days it was in the paper as these two guys are on a rampage and there has been eight hold-ups in a week.
All in a days work I guess.
The incident happened at 11:55pm. The boss had to come to the garage to show the Police the video footage and to man the shop while I was gone. He seemed reasonably relaxed about the event, but what could he do anyway.
The robber was pretty well spoken and calm and did not really have an accent, I knew pretty early on in the incident that he did not seem to be high on drugs or adrenalin. Mind you he has had plenty of practice I guess.
We now have to have the door locked and serve customers through a night pay draw which is a real pain.
The most disappointing thing for me was the attitude of the boss, in that they are not going to do anything except put the responsibility back onto staff about not opening the door at night or you will loose your job. For me that is just a cop-out as they could do lots of things to improve safety but as with Mobil (the brand of petrol we sell) they do not want to spend any money and do not give a fig about staff or their well-being.
The next day I got a ring from Victim Support, she asked how many days I was having off and I said to her why would I have days off, I was fine as I will not let a little thing like an armed robbery worry me.
The robbery was on the front page of the local rag the next night and was in the paper the following night as well. I am told by a customer the raids have been on TV, the Police 10-7 program.
One way of becoming famous I guess!!
Bill Rosoman
Hamilton NZ