‘Your life’s not worth a minimum wage job:’ Clerk fired after pulling gun on robber
An Oregon clerk was fired from his convenience store job after he pulled out a gun to fend off a hatchet-wielding robber — and he says he stands by his handling of the situation.
“I completely understand, I broke company policy, but it upsets me that I lost my job,” said Kristofer Follis, who worked at the Plaid Pantry for about six months before the robbery on April 28 in Oak Grove, according to KGW. “Your life’s not worth a minimum wage job.”
A spokesperson for Plaid Pantry said “the company makes significant investments in security equipment and training in robbery deterrence and violence prevention,” KGW reported.
Deputies said that Follis is licensed to carry a concealed weapon, according to the Oregonian, but his employer has a policy prohibiting workers from carrying weapons.
Plaid Pantry CEO Jonathan Polonsky said in a statement that “in the event a robbery does occur, the focus shifts entirely to non-resistance, cooperation, and violence avoidance for the safety of our employees and customers,” the Oregonian reported.
The attempted robber hasn’t been caught yet, KGW reports.
Surveillance video released by the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office earlier this month showed the masked man peering into the suburban Portland store through the windows around 1 a.m. that morning and checking out the surroundings before he walked inside. Once in the store, the robber went up to the counter and took the 12-inch hatchet out of his pants, the Sheriff’s Office said.
“Within a second of that happening, I drew my gun — made it known that I had it, never pointed it at him,” Follis said in an interview with Portland radio host Lars Larson, adding that he “immediately got on the phone with police and had them come in.”
The attempted robber got down on his knees and held his hands above his head, the surveillance video shows. He also set down the hatchet.
“The look in his eye was: Oh crap, I’m going to jail for this,” Follis said in a recording of the Larson interview posted online.
Meanwhile, Follis was on the phone with police, he said.
“He didn’t say anything until about the middle of the call with the police. The guy said that he was sorry and he’ll leave,” Follis told Larson. “Another minute or two goes by of him realizing that he screwed up (and) he took off out of the store.”
Deputies who responded that morning couldn’t track the attempted robber down, even with the help of a K-9, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
The suspect was described as about 5-feet-5-inches tall and in his early 20s, and deputies asked for the public’s help identifying him.
Follis told Larson that he was told that the district manager “tried to let me keep my job,” though he was ultimately fired.
Follis is in the process of looking for a job still, he told Larson, adding that he has experience with construction, plumbing and more.
“I already knew that as soon as I drew the gun, I was getting fired,” Follis said, according to KGW.
Some of the material in this story appeared in an earlier article about the incident by the author
This story was originally published May 29, 2019 at 5:55 PM with the headline "‘Your life’s not worth a minimum wage job:’ Clerk fired after pulling gun on robber."