I can understand your point, to a point. But from other reports the clerk was taunting the soon to be murderer from behind the safety of his bullet proof shield. Then after escalating the situation by trapping and taunting this animal he ignored the animal’s threats to start shooting the other customers. Not unlocking the door until after shots were fired.
The clerk completely disregarded the safety of his customers. His actions directly put them in grave danger. All over a declined credit card charge of $3.80. A charge his other costumers offered to cover. That was an excellent deescalation move by the customers. Denied by the clerk why? What right did the clerk have to deny that offer? He was going to get paid for his goods.
He may not have meant it but a reasonable person with half a brain should have expected this situation to end badly. So whether it was due to gross ignorance, pride or a false sense of duty he displayed a willful lack of concern for the safety of his customers. The clerk is significantly responsible for this outcome. He escalated the situation at every turn instead of taking the several opportunities he had to end it peacefully.
At the very least this is gross negligence. I don’t think involuntary manslaughter is an unreasonable charge given that it was a series of dangerous actions on his part that trapped his customers in this escalating situation. Probably false imprisonment as well. What right did he have to keep the innocent bystanders from leaving?
Only rebuttal would be to your last sentence. How do you know that animal would let them leave? If he’s going to shoot them to open the door, why wouldn’t he shoot them for attempting to leave? Kind of a no win situation. Stay strapped, fight back….
In this case by not illegally detaining the innocent bystanders, either by not locking the doors in the first place or by releasing them after the threats started getting made, the animal very likely would have just walked out the door. Resulting in a petty theft (since the clerk refused to accept payment from the bystanders) with no one harmed.
That is one possibility. The other possibility is the animal would have shot them for looking at him wrong in his mind. As said before both are F’ed in the head.
He may not have meant it but a reasonable person with half a brain should have expected this situation to end badly. So whether it was due to gross ignorance, pride or a false sense of duty he displayed a willful lack of concern for the safety of his customers. The clerk is significantly responsible for this outcome. He escalated the situation at every turn instead of taking the several opportunities he had to end it peacefully.
YES Shamrock Absolutely! on all counts. But as I said in my piece above, he was STUPID!
YOU DO NOT POKE A BEAR! TAUNT THEM! It is a good way to get dead!
maybe his ‘Machismo’ cut off the blood flow to his brain? Maybe he felt secure in his plexi-glass booth!
STUPID nonetheless ! He cared zip about those Innocents he lined up for slaughter. But he was stupid on all counts because maybe he didn’t CARE about any of those customers.
You have to give a sh-- about others to make your way in this world. In his little ‘castle’ he poked the bear and survived, too bad for the other folks.
The one small piece of karma in this situation at the moment is that it sounds like the clerk is being treated to what it feels like to be trapped in a cage with dangerous animals. At least until he makes bail.
The animal was definitely messed in the head. I haven’t seen a full version of the video so can’t speak to the actual timeline of when he turned his attention to the other customers. But it sounds fairly clear that the animal was primarily concerned with getting out the door with his coffee and donut. I think it is very unlikely he would have started shooting if he had an avenue of escape.
Even if the animal didn’t immediately exit given the opportunity it is likely that the other customers would have had an opportunity to escape during periods when the clerk and animal were arguing. It sounds like the animal did not immediately pull his firearm. His hands were most likely full with coffee and donuts when he started making threats. There were likely some windows for retreat if the front and back doors weren’t locked.
I know the second I heard an argument start between those two I would have been heading for the door before it had chance to escalate further. I would have been very pissed to find my escape route blocked. I would have been even more pissed if I was forced to shoot the animal to save myself and others over a $3.80 disagreement because I was illegally detained and trapped with the animal by an idiotic and negligently uncaring store clerk.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. If the animal was that intent on getting out; why didn’t he shoot out the door window(s)? We can do all the what ifs when the fact is an animal killed ppl for no good reason and we are Monday Night quarterbacking it.
You can’t expect animals to act rationally especially after they are cornered. But we can figure out which actions are more likely to provoke them, which actions are more likely to resolve the situation peacefully and what actions are likely to put innocent bystanders in harms way. It is better to play the what ifs on Monday morning than to get stuck having to figure them out on the fly next Sunday if we suddenly find ourselves caught in the middle of the action.
It seems more than reasonable to assume that this guy would have walked out the door had the clerk not decided to detain him. I could potentially see trying to detain a thief if you were not also putting other customers in harms way, especially by illegally detaining them as well. Though in this case even if the other customers weren’t there it seems foolish to trap a petty thief in the store where they could do far more than $3.80 of damage trying to get away.
That is why I prefer to let the police do the policing. They are trained to detain criminals while limiting risks to the public as much as possible. They don’t always follow their training but I suspect they will more often than not do a better job than your typical store clerk.
Cases like this make a strong argument for places like CA that are trying to pass laws making it illegal for employees to try and stop shoplifters. I think employees should be allowed to take steps to stop theft but not if they will clearly risk the safety of their other customers.
This justifying that some of you are doing shows… F*ck I don’t know what it shows. But I find it…
This “dumb kid” didn’t freeze, I would probably opine that he wasn’t a kid at all, seeing he is 22. He did something criminal. I don’t care what your employers policy is. Just following orders has never been a good defense. You Can Not Lock People Into ANYTHING. It’s false imprisonment, maybe even kidnapping. A remote lock like that is not for locking people into the store is, it’s to lock people out of the store.
I expect weird rationalizations on situations online, but I didn’t expect it here. How anyone can see this as anything other than a crime befuddles me.
