Caught On Camera: Worker Defends Brooklyn Deli During Armed Robbery
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A store clerk was caught on camera fighting back during an armed robbery recently in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
As CBS2's Dave Carlin reported, the suspect was seen jumping over the counter to steal cash, but the clerk refused to let the crime go down easily.
The deli on Evergreen Avenue in Bushwick keeps the cash register behind a partition, and it has a worker on overnight shift you don't want to mess with.
A man with a gun was seen on store surveillance video going in just before midnight on Friday, April 21.
Once inside, the robber leapt over the counter in to the glassed-in area. The cash drawer fell to the ground, and the robber greedily grabbed money.
The worker got out of the small space. But he did not leave.
The store employee could have run away out of this store. But he instead found a place in the back to defend his store.
The worker's only weapon was merchandise, as he pitched candles in jars at the suspect's head -- one after the other. That was when the robber fired two rounds in the worker's direction, missing him.
CBS2 asked the deli worker about it, but he was keeping quiet Sunday.
But a witness said, "There was a shot," and said where bullets went.
"It came around here, this area here," he said. "It went into the soaps, and there was soap all over the floor."
"He defended his store," another customer said.
The robber left with $1,300. Friends of the worker marveled at how brave the deli worker was, saying
he acted fast because he worried a customer might walk in and get hurt.
"It was to get the guy out of the store," a mansaid.
Just seven minutes before holding up the deli, police said the same suspect pushed his way in to a private home just down the street near Stanhope Street and Central Avenue -- stealing a phone, cash and credit card from a 30-year-old man.
Police said a woman joined the robber as an accomplice, and the pair left the crime scenes in a dark colored Nissan sedan - getting away from one tough worker who stood his ground.
