Normally, I get to sleep in until 8 or 9 on Sunday mornings. My SO graciously hauls the kids downstairs and feeds ‘em.
Not so, this weekend. My SO has a former business partner who owns a gas station, and my SO covers the management duties while the head honcho is indisposed or unavailable. So, about 7 a.m. Sunday, my SO came running back upstairs, to tell me the gas station was robbed, so he had to go over there. (He’s also the maintenance contractor, and the IT person who installed the security system and cameras and all the computer junk, so he had to go copy the security video files to CD for the cops.)
Nobody was harmed during the robbery, thank goodness. The guy who was working was amazingly calm, when the robber came in and stuck a gun in his face. The employee, I’m told, saw the gun and immediately opened the register, emptied it, and held out the cash. Smart guy, and he later said, “Ah, not the first time I’ve had a gun to my head.” Still, I think that guy has nerves of steel.
But my SO had set up the security cameras, and he placed one directly behind the register, to record the customer’s face in close-up. Why? Because he sometimes works behind the counter there, and he told the owner, “When someone comes in here and shoots me, you can see who it is and prosecute the bastard.” I called him paranoid. Seems I’m naïve.
The robber on Saturday night came in wearing a cloth tied across the lower part of his face. It fell off, he yanked it back up, and it fell off again. Perfect video of his face, not once, but twice. One bit of the video even has the shot of him holding the gun to the employee’s head.
When my SO got there and saw the video, he said, “Oh, that’s (name deleted).” Same thing that the employee had said: “Looked like (name deleted)”. The robber used to work at a pizza place in the strip mall behind the station. He was arrested later, driving about 130 on a highway in another state, (but only about 30 miles away), under the influence and in possession of something (crack is the most likely substance). He’s already a convicted felon who was released from prison about two years ago, and my SO mentioned to the cops that he looks exactly like the guy who robbed two other gas stations in that part of the state within the past few weeks. Sure enough, they reviewed the videos, and same guy. So he’s looking at two or three counts of armed robbery, plus whatever else they can throw at him, and probably 25-to-life.
All I can think is, 14 hours earlier, that would have been my guy with a gun to his head. And thank goodness that the gentleman who was working was calm and level-headed, because his life is worth far more than the $700 that the robber got. (And the owner is a decent person who was far more concerned with the employee’s safety and well-being than with any financial loss.)
I don’t care for this much excitement on Sunday morning. Especially when it takes until Monday to settle down.
