Armed robbery is a form of robbery in which the robber is using a weapon. This weapon is usually a firearm or a knife.
There's been some pretty creative and odds weapons used to commit armed robbery. For example, I don't remember when or exactly where it was it occurred, but I heard on the news a few years ago that a man had robbed a bank in Canada by carrying a Canadian goose under his arm, and threatening to wring it's neck if the bank employees didn't give him money.
It's probably a good idea to know how to survive an armed robbery.
This is an account of my experience in being a
victim of armed robbery. It was the second week of June, about two weeks after
graduating from High School on my birthday in May.
I was working the closing shift at Bonanza. It was a very busy night, one of our dishwashers went home sick, and we were getting hammered pretty hard for the amount of staff we had. After the restaurant closed, most people got their closing duties done before too long, and left. I, however, was helping to finish the pileup of dishes and doing a few other cleaning duties. I think we got finished somewhere around 2am.
As we got ready to leave, Steve (the assistand manager),
went to arm the alarm system. It wouldn't arm, because one of the sensors was tripped. The lookup sheet told us it was the outdoor freezer.
Steve thought the freezer door simply wasn't closed well enough. As he pushed open the back door to go fix the freezer door, two hands pulled the door back away from him. Steve backed away with his hands up. Two men came in the door, pointing guns. One was pointed at Steve, the other at me. Now, if you've never stared down the barrel of a gun that's being pointed at you, let me tell you a little fact: When it's pointed at you, the thing looks about 10 times actual size. They told us to get on the floor. They told us to look at the floor, not to even try to look at them. They asked who the manager was, and Steve said it was him. One robber used duct tape to bind my hands behind my back and bind my ankles together, then led Steve to the safe with a gun at his neck.
As Steve was opening the safe, and one of the robbers was making his "withdrawal", the other robber decided to fuck with my head. He stuck his finger in the back of my neck (I could feel the warmth through my shirt), and asked "Is this a gun?" I replied, "I don't know." He then replaced his finger with the gun (now feeling the cold steel through my shirt), and asked "Is this a gun?" Again, I replied "I don't know." "Just keep saying that, I don't know, I don't know, 'cause you don't know shit."
The other robber returned Steve to the back room where I was, and they duct taped him as well. They rifled our wallets for whatever money we had, as if the thousand plus dollars they got from the safe wasn't enough. As they left, one of them made some statement using a phrase about the poor taking from the rich, and people getting what's coming to them.
Once we were sure they were gone, I noticed a knife on a shelf under a table. I backed myself over to the knife, used it to cut the duct tape around my wrists, thus freeing my hand. I freed myself and Steve, and we proceeded to call 911.
It turns out they used a two by four to pry the outdoor freezer door open far enough to cause the door sensor to trip, and thus prevent the alarm from arming. In other words, we did exactly as they planned. :(
Two weeks later, the store manager, with the district manager by his side, asked if I remembered any other details of the robbery that might help the police. I said no. He then asked, "Not even their shoes?" I said no, they had told me to look at the floor.
The manager then asked, "Well, do you always do what you're told?" My jaw hit the floor. I screeched out the only coherent phrase I could muster at the moment: "They had GUNS!
Now, if you don't know what you're supposed to do in an armed robbery, see this node. Apparently, this manager had been robbed a few times managing other stores, so maybe he's an old hand at being robbed. However, I did as I was told to by the robbers, because I wanted to live, and the restaurants money isn't worth my life. Besides, this is what they have insurance for. When I went home for the night, I felt like a victim all over again. I couldn't sleep. I stewed all night, and then just stayed up to call in the morning. When I finally got ahold of a manager, I told them I would no longer be working there, and that I would turn in my uniform when I collected my final paycheck. They begged me to come in and at least finish the week. I told them no. The words of the store manager still rung in my mind as if he was right there saying it to my face. His statement showed an absolute lack of any respect for my saftey, or of my value as a human being. I would not work there.
When I went to collect my final paycheck and turn in my uniform, the district manager and the store manager spoke as if I weren't even there. One said, "Do you have anything to say to him?" "No, I don't, do you?" "Nope." Fine, they're dicks. All the better reason to be out of there.
I returned to that resturant a couple years later. There was new management, and I talk to the new manager about my experience. The new manager said, "I'd have told him to go to hell. In fact, I DID tell him to go to hell." Turns out this manager had been made store manager, and the previous store manager was demoted to an assistant manager. It wasn't instant karma, but karma none the less.
All of this fucked with me for quite a while. Had I known about victim services, I probably would have gone for some counciling. As it was, I got over it. Mostly.
This is also the night I started smoking. I had a cigar in my car from my birthday, which I smoked. Yes, I know you're not supposed to inhale a cigar, but I wanted SOMETHING to calm myself down. The next time I was at work, we were all going to leave together. I bummed a cigarette as we were about to go, as I was so paranoid about walking out that door I needed something to calm my nerves. I went and bought my first pack of cigarettes: Camel filter kings.