In 2013, Circle K was reported to have a policy that disarms their employees. Like many businesses the working theory is that it’s cheaper to suffer multiple robberies, (and risk dead and injured employees and customers) than to allow employees to defend themselves and their customers. One of the problems with that calculus is that it encourages more armed robberies of Circle K stores, thus increasing the actual risk to employees and customers, while decreasing the risk to the bad guys . . .

Don’t think for a minute that those bad guys don’t know that. From  abc15.com:

PHOENIX – Officials are looking for a man who they believe robbed three different Circle K locations around the West Valley.

On September 6th between the hours of 4:20 a.m. and 5 a.m., a male entered three Circle K stores and robbed each at gun point.

In the screenshot above, the suspect is holding a gun-like object. Is it really a gun? My educated guess is that it’s a single action revolver with the ejector rod housing on the right side of the barrel. His finger seems to be on the trigger, but I cannot make out enough detail to determine if the hammer is cocked.

Details like that can make a big difference in the calculation of whether the odds of resisting are in your favor.

The robber has identifiable tattoos on each arm and we have a decent view of his face which should make it easier to track him down.

Wisconsin destroyed the legal argument that businesses incur more liability by allowing their employees to exercise their Second Amendment rights. They did that by granting them immunity from lawsuit for allowing customers and employees to carry firearms.

In this case, not resisting worked for the Circle K clerks. That may not be the case next time.

©2015 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
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23 COMMENTS

  1. I thought it looked more like a stainless Beretta 92 (or whatever Taurus calls its clone) than a revolver.

  2. Click on photo above to increase size. Does appear to have trigger finger indexed on frame.
    Not typical thug look. Clean cut white robber, hmmm

  3. There is a convenience store less than a mile from my house that use to be a Circle K and I can tell you that the employees I use to talk with there made the calculation that it is better to be armed and unemployed than disarmed and dead. The guy I use to talk to most often had a five shot Smith snubby and his coworker carried some kind of 380 as I recall. The place got robbed and it did not turn out well for the bad guy. Not long after that Circle K sold that store to some smaller player.

    Point is, unless they search their employees every day the smarter ones are going to take measures to protect themselves. The smart guys will understand that the corporate BS will get them killed if they aren’t very careful.

    • Back around 88-89 I had a young married troop who was moonlighting in a stop and rob to make ends meet. Guy had a baby too, and you can imagine how hard it was in those days to get by on A1C pay.

      One night his place got robbed and the perp put two rounds into the cigarette rack next to my troop’s head. He couldn’t exactly just quit unless he wanted his family to starve, so he started carrying a .44 in a shoulder holster. No more robberies on his shift, and even though it was Illinois no one said anything about it.

  4. Question.. If you were in the aisle behind this guy, would you shoot while he has a weapon pointed at the clerk or would try to make him turn first? I don’t want him to have a chance to target me but I don’t want him to pull the trigger once he is shot.

    • I believe the destruction of the brain would cause the hand to go limp, not clinch. When people get shot they drop or slump over, not jump in the air (like powerful electric shocks, which make the entire body clinch).

  5. I worked at a Circle K in a suburb of Phoenix, AZ roughly 15 years ago. Gilbert to be exact. Two things stood out about the hiring process. 1 was the included life insurance policy. I cannot remember if it was 10K or 25K policy. (I want to say it was 25K)

    The other was the weapons/firearms policy. The policy specifically used the word “discouraged” not “prohibited.” I remember the wording, because it was the first time I’d seen a company policy that used the word “discouraged” rather than “prohibited” when it came to weapons/firearms.

    Granted, it was 15 years ago, but I hardly think things have changed, because AZ is even more gun friendly now than when I lived there.

  8. Identifiable tatoos and no effort to hide the face. Either someone who is very confident or a tweaker who is very desperate. And all that risk for probably no more than a few hundred dollars per store.

    It must be said that most criminals are not the brightest bulbs in the pack or the sharpest tools in the shed. Leave the criminal mastermind to Hollywood.

  9. The mistake other than being unarmed is advertising the fact. It’s like standing in a hoard of hungry lions and wearing a meat coat.

  11. It would be nice to hand over a wad of fake money that looks real enough but isn’t. Imagine getting back to the crib and seeing Obama’s face on a bunch of 20s

    • “Imagine getting back to the crib and seeing Obama’s face on a bunch of 20s.”

      Oh my gosh, don’t even joke about that … it makes me think about the possibility of seeing Obama on paper currency some day. Excuse me while I barf.

  13. This happened in Arizona? I’m surprised that in attempting 3 robberies, that he wasn’t shot by a customer. I would think that the odds of him running in front of someone armed while committing his crime spree, would have been pretty good (bad from his view point).

    • Yeah but keep in mind this guy is probable robbing the store late at night, early in the morning when most people aren’t going to the Circle K. And although AZ is a constitutional carry state, most people in AZ probable don’t know that.

  14. The 2nd Amendment was put into the Constitution so the people could protect themselves from a corrupt government. That is why it says “shall not infringe” so we can have what the government has to prevent a Holocaust. I believe the people should have what the government has including machine guns. The only gun control law there should be is that criminals can’t have any firearms. Thanks for your vote, pass the word. mrpresident2016.com

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