Raw courage by Patel turned the tables on Christian Thornton, who is behind bars now.
AB Wire
A teenage criminal, Christian Thornton, 17, thought he had it all planned out when he hit a convenience store in Keysville, Georgia, on Tuesday, for cash: he had a gun, was tall and well-built, and the store was manned by a woman from India, Bhumika Patel, who was half his size physically.
Thornton was wrong. In his wildest thoughts before he struck the store, he wouldn’t have envisaged the situation that followed.
CCTV footage released from the attack – the link which is at the end of this story – showed Thornton paying money to Patel, for a Mountain Dew soda he has in hand, but then taking a gun out and pointing it at Patel’s face, threatening her, ordering her to empty the contents of the cash register and give it to him.
“He says ‘get me all the money’ or else I’ll shoot you, I said you need money? But if you wanna shoot me go ahead and shoot it,” Patel told WFXG in Augusta, Ga.
“My register opened and he said ‘No, no, no, no. I don’t need change. Give me whole money,’” Patel told WAGT. “I say no I can’t. He say I shoot you! I say go ahead. If you want to shoot me, shoot me!”
That was not what Thornton expected. In a dramatic turn of events that followed in a the next few seconds, Patel wrested the initiative by first swatting away the gun pointed at her, like batting away an irritating fly, and then pummeling Thornton on his head with the cash register, as he cowered under the ferocious and brave attack.
As Thornton turned around and tries to flee from the battering, Patel is seen in the video footage grabbing hold of a hammer near her, and turning to go out of the counter, to follow the miserable robber who was hastily making his way out of the store.
Fox 54 reported that Thornton was arrested by Burke County deputies, on Wednesday.
Officials said Thornton was found at a home in Richmond County. He has been charged with Criminal Attempt Armed Robbery, Aggravated Assault, and Possession of Firearm during the Commission of Certain Crimes.
Watch video of attack caught on CCTV and uploaded by The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/mar/03/cashier-fights-off-armed-robber-with-bare-hands-video
1 Comment
Well it is obvious that this lady don’t quite understand that she should always use 911 . She got very lucky that this young man wasn’t a serious robber otherwise she could be dead .
She’s no hero and shouldn’t be labeled as such.