Attempted beer run turned robbery

[Talasar]

As I stated in my post a few weeks back I'm a third shifter at a c-store. This means I deal with all the drunks and crazies for my store which is all well and good. Most of my regulars are well behaved and have learned that if they're well behaved I'm more likely to bend the rules in their favor.

Now the incident in question happened at 1.30ish am sunday morning. It was after I can legally sell beer and liquor so all my beer coolers had their past legal sale curtains down.

Enter two maybe 16 year old boys. They're acting 'squirrelly' as I call it so that throws up a red flag so I walk around my cash wrap to watch them a little closer. As I come around an isle I find them pulling open the curtains to one of my beer cools are grabbing an 18 pack of Miller light and 12 pack of Bud they see me a book it to the door. Needless to say I get there first. They set the beer down at the end of an isle and try to claim that they weren't stealing anything. I tell them that's BS I saw them with the beer and promptly ban them from the store. I'd have held them for the cops but policy doesn't allow for that.

Turns out they ran home grabbed ski masks and a base ball bat and went up to our other near by location and told the clerk there that it was a robbery. Said clerk pulled the drawer out of the register and set on the counter. These kids didn't want they money they just grabbed three cases of beer a left the store.

See the thing is? Even though they didn't TAKE the money because they said it was that means it was a robbery with a weapon. Taking the petty theft charge they would have gotten for just taking the beer up to a felony with a max stay in prison of 30 years.

Kids are stupid.

[XCashier]

Was there any surveillance video? Any way to catch/identify them? I hope they get what's coming to them.

[Talasar]

Oh yes, we have several lovely head shots of them that we've turned into the cops. I'm hoping this latest incident and the fact another of our stores in town was robbed this morning will let us set up a door bell and lock the doors at night like the other 24 hour c-stores in town.

[PepperElf]

not to mention if they come back you can call the police on them
although as you stated before you can't hold them back

[Sapphire Silk]

Even if they didn't state it was a robbery, weapons were involved. So it's still armed robbery. They should have left the bats at home.

I knew an inmate when I worked as a correctional nurse who told me about his case. He thought his charges were too steep; he'd been charged with armed robbery for claiming he had a knife in his coat pocket. Only he didn't really have one; it was a bluff.

Didn't matter. The law is what the law is. He got prison time for it.

[reimero]

I once sat on a jury involving a kid who was accused of being part of a small group that pulled a gun on somebody and took his car and cheapo prepaid cell phone (this is relevant.) According to state law here, if one person in a group of 3 or 4 pulls a weapon, all 3 or 4 are guilty of pulling a weapon. The prosecution doesn't have to prove who pulled it, just that it happened.

Anyway, this kid was charged with 2 crimes: carjacking and robbery with a deadly weapon. Both are felonies: carjacking is class C (I think) and robbery is class D, however, adding a deadly weapon makes it a class C. But here's the kicker: while both carjacking and robbery with a deadly weapon are the same class of felony with the same potential prison term (4-12 years, if memory serves), the deadly weapon portion of the charge makes prison mandatory: the judge cannot suspend the sentence, impose house arrest or otherwise mitigate the penalty.

Don't get me wrong: stealing the car was bad, and it sounded like this kid was a "follower" rather than a ringleader, but it was the $20 cell phone that sent him to prison. Had they ignored the phone, the robbery with a deadly weapon charge wouldn't have applied, and carjacking doesn't carry the mandatory prison term.

[TheCheerfulTreeRat]

Don't get me wrong: stealing the car was bad, and it sounded like this kid was a "follower" rather than a ringleader, but it was the $20 cell phone that sent him to prison. Had they ignored the phone, the robbery with a deadly weapon charge wouldn't have applied, and carjacking doesn't carry the mandatory prison term.

Um... Where's the deadly weapon?

[Grendus]

Someone else in the group pulled a gun. Unfortunately, since he was with them that means he gets the same charge as the one who had the gun. It's not a bad law, but it wasn't designed with that situation in mind.

[Pagan]

Um... Where's the deadly weapon?

Right here.

I once sat on a jury involving a kid who was accused of being part of a small group that pulled a gun on somebody and took his car and cheapo prepaid cell phone (this is relevant.)

[Jester]

It was after I can legally sell beer and liquor so all my beer coolers had their past legal sale curtains down.

An easy way for the store owners to prevent beer runs/beer robberies is to have locking cooler doors. After the cutoff time, the clerk or manager merely locks all the cooler doors that house alcohol, and return to their normal duties. Someone wants beer? Too bad, so sad...it's after the legal cutoff time, and all the doors are locked. Sure, someone could pull a weapon and demand the keys to the coolers, or break the glass doors, but simply locking those cooler doors will prevent most people who might try such a stunt from actually trying it. It's the same reason why you lock your car. It won't absolutely prevent someone from stealing it, but it cuts down on the likelihood, and prevents all but the most motivated thieves from succeeding.

They set the beer down at the end of an isle and try to claim that they weren't stealing anything.

Well, considering their age, they certainly weren't BUYING anything, so the only other option for them grabbing beer is that they were, in fact, trying to steal it.

In other words, while this was not a robbery, it WAS an attempted robbery...foiled by the quick actions of Tala

Don't get me wrong: stealing the car was bad, and it sounded like this kid was a "follower" rather than a ringleader, but it was the $20 cell phone that sent him to prison. Had they ignored the phone, the robbery with a deadly weapon charge wouldn't have applied, and carjacking doesn't carry the mandatory prison term.

I'm confused. If they used the gun to steal both the phone AND the car, doesn't the "robbery with a deadly weapon" apply to BOTH thefts, and not just the phone theft?

[Talasar]

The robbery part actually happened at another location owned by the same company I work for by the same two boys. The police are 99% sure of it at the moment and have a photo expert of some sort confirming at the moment, Jester.

As nice as locking beer coolers would be we also have warm cases on our floor in stack outs. So locking the coolers wouldn't really help that much. I'd much rather have the door bell and locked front doors system our major competitor has (and the only other 24 hour c-store in the area). At least that way I don't have to worry about armed robbery as much. My store was robbed about three months ago (I wasn't working at the time) and then like a month we had another attempted robbery the guy had a corded power drill in a bag.

[Jester]

The locking cooler doors wouldn't help with the warm stacks, no, but generally when people want beer, they want cold beer, and the locking cooler doors would at the very least cut down on such things. Because the people who are going to try to steal beer are going to do so because they want it RIGHT NOW, or damn soon, and they are not going to want room temperature beer. Of course, this is a generalization, and there will be exceptions to this, but overall I still say that locking cooler doors would cut down on the number of attempted (and successful) beer thefts from the store.

[Talasar]

Considering the battle we're having getting corporate to agree to locking the front doors and a door bell system. I might as well wish for the moon. We've been basically the only c-store chain robbed in the last six months because we're open at the right times for it and our competitors lock their doors at night. Beer theft is actually less of an issue at my location it's the store just down the road (That these kids in question 'robbed') that as all the beer runs.

[Jester]

Oh, I'm not saying that you can actually DO anything about it. Just that this is what the owners should do to cut down on robbery. Ditto the locking doors you referred to. But clearly they are too cheap to bother protecting their store, their product, and their employees. My best suggestion to YOU is to go work for their not-so-stingy and probably far safer competitors. Just a thought.

[Javarod]

Considering the battle we're having getting corporate to agree to locking the front doors and a door bell system. I might as well wish for the moon. We've been basically the only c-store chain robbed in the last six months because we're open at the right times for it and our competitors lock their doors at night. Beer theft is actually less of an issue at my location it's the store just down the road (That these kids in question 'robbed') that as all the beer runs.

A long chain and a padlock will do the job cheaply until the company wises up.