War Breaks Out at the Family Dollar Store
Source – Two employees fought back when a pair of suspected shoplifters tried to steal from a discount store in the Bronx.
Surveillance video shows the scuffle inside the Family Dollar on Clinton Avenue in the Belmont section of the borough.
Police said the employees confronted the alleged thieves around 9 p.m. Wednesday as they tried to leave without paying.
One suspect threatened to stab the workers with a syringe, and the other brandished a knife, police said.
The men eventually made off with 23 packages of boxers and 15 bottles of air freshener.
I’m not usually one to brag, but my first job as a kid was working in a convenience store. Thank you. It was a dream, and I made it my reality. So as a guy with a short period of retail work on his curriculum vitae, I want to say I have the utmost respect for these two Family Dollar employees. Respect mixed with fear and stark raving horror.
That store job I had sent me to a meeting where they trained me on how to handle robberies. As in, a 40-ish “security expert” in a short sleeved shirt-and-tie combo, tinted glasses, Hi Karate aftershave and the most aggressive combover I’ve ever encountered, trained teenage me on what do to if someone robbed the store, including an armed robber. Apparently not realizing that for my 25 cents an hour over minimum wage, I had my plan all mapped out. I was going to ask any would-be thief one question: “Would you like that money in paper or plastic?” Followed by if he didn’t seen to be in too much of a hurry, “Can I help you carry the safe out to your car?”
I mean, it’s not like I was some first-generation immigrant store owner feeding my family this way and therefore with a financial stake in every dollar in the cash drawer and every item on the shelves. We’re talking about chain places. Corporations. Making their profits from people’s nicotine habits and lottery addictions. I wouldn’t risk getting stabbed or shot for the contents of my wallet, I’m sure as hell not doing it for somebody else’s.A store like that probably has, what? … three grand worth of merchandise at any one time, total? Well I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, Chief.
These Family Dollar guys were playing hero ball. Well in the dangerous world of late night retail work, the real heroes are the men who never made it home. And that was never going to be me. Besides, even if you are going to try to physically stop these guys, you’ve got to pick your fights. And you decide them on just how invested in the shoplifting the thieves are. For instance, some stoner putting Pop Tarts under his jacket isn’t going to put up much of a struggle. But two guys grabbing a bunch of powdered baby formula aren’t feeding babies. They’re using it to cut drugs. So they’ll kill you, go home and forget they ever met you.
That said, consider these thieves. I shudder to think why they’d need an emergency supply of boxers and air freshener. I just know that every possible reason tells me these men were more desperate than any Dollar Store employee could possibly be. Next time, give these guys a good leaving alone and get home at the end of your shift in one piece. I know I would’ve.