Current Events > So I'm at work and I just got "smash and grabbed."

(+) Yeah! (+)

I work night shift at a 24-hour gas station.

For those that don't know, a "smash and grab" is when a group of people take a (usually stolen) vehicle and ram it into the front of a store, then grab shit (usually an ATM, as it was this time) and throw it into a second vehicle and take off.

This time it was a van that they backed into the front of the store. The ATM is just inside the door, and was clearly what they were aiming for. The impact knocked the ATM over (somehow didn't break any of the glass in the front of the store, though O_o). I immediately jumped up, ran over and hit the silent alarm, then threw my arms up and stood back against the wall just hoping they weren't going to fuck with me, which they didn't. Two guys ran in, grabbed the ATM and yanked the cords out, then picked it up and put it into their second vehicle where a 3rd guy helped them before they all took off.

The cops are here now. I haven't given a statement yet. And I imagine I'm not going to be updating this until I'm home and everything's settled.
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To CE!

No really, what the fuck are you doing posting on CE? Maybe call the manager and say you're going home.
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He's going to be there a long ass time with the cops.

Might as well waste some time.
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That's crazy. Glad you're okay TC.
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This happens like once a month in my area.
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Sorry to hear that, man. Stay strong.
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Jetblackmoon posted...

That's crazy. Glad you're okay TC.

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Please post updates
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Do you work in a bad city/town?
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Needs a "Live" Tag
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Alright, I'm home after a little less drama than I actually expected.

Alright, first a bit better detail about what actually happened. Don't have any pics 'cause I felt a bit weird about trying to take some in the middle of a crime scene with cops everywhere...I did ask one of them if I could, 'cause obviously I'm going to be telling my friends and family about this so it'd be nice to be able to show them. He kinda shrugged and said "yeah, I get it, it's alright just maybe wait till we finish with the official ones first." Fair enough. And then, frankly, I forgot before I left. It's mostly cleaned up already, though, so not too interesting.

So here's a very rough reference for the layout of the store:


I'm on my laptop, like 10 minutes before 3am, and it's been a slow night so I'm playing a video game. I'm facing the front of the store, but tucked in the corner next to a couple window signs, so I'm kind of hidden from one side of the lot. It seems they came from that side, so I couldn't see them until they were already getting into position to reverse into the store. I looked up just as they slammed on the gas, and was barely able to grab my phone and jump away from the counter. Luckily, although the impact was LOUD and shit went flying everywhere, it didn't actually do much physical damage. None of the windows, which start about 2 feet from the ground and go to the ceiling along the entire facade, broke or even cracked. They hit right at the ATM, catching the edge of the door frame. The ATM was knocked over and fell into the first set of shelves, pushing it back a couple feet, but the door frame and the bricking underneath the windows only moved like 6inches and are still mostly intact. The side of the door they hit happened to be the one that swung inwards, so even the door itself is fine.

My first thought was "holy shit, this is really happening right now, that wasn't an accident" and I immediately turned and hit the silent alarm we have next to one of the registers. I looked at my phone and thought about dialing 911, but I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to be on the phone when they walked in. They haven't hurt me yet, and I don't need to give them a reason to. Besides, I've already hit the alarm so it's not like 911 is going to get a faster response. They're already on their way. So I dropped my phone onto the register, put my hands up, and backed up against the wall about half-way from the front to the back end of the counter, trying to put the registers between us just in case. I was already against the wall when the first guy (driver of the smash van) came inside. He just pointed at me (no weapon, but wearing gloves, a hoodie with the hood up, and a white bandana covering most of his face, I could only see around his eyes) and yelled "Stay back! Don't move! Just stay back!" I just shook my head and said "Don't worry about me! I'm not moving!" Then he went back to the ATM where his first buddy (passenger in the smash van, I think) had come inside and was trying to free it from the cords. A second vehicle, dark blue SUV is all I could tell, backed up to the door with the tailgate already open. He came to the door and helped the first guy get the cords off, then they all hoisted the ATM into the back of the SUV, jumped in without even looking back at me, and took off.

The entire thing was over in under a minute. Cops pulled in less than 30 seconds later. We're talking sub-2-minute response time, which is pretty fucking good in effectively the middle of nowhere Ohio, imo. But he was coming from the opposite direction, so even with just 30 seconds they were already long since out of sight. I have a feeling that was planned. These guys knew exactly what they were doing. No way it was their first time, and they've clearly got it down to a science.
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RdVEHfJqAvUPIbk posted...

To CE!

No really, what the fuck are you doing posting on CE? Maybe call the manager and say you're going home.

I couldn't go anywhere even if I wanted to. It's a damn crime scene and I'm the only witness. Where do you think they're gonna let me go? I literally had to sit there for about 2 hours with nothing to do while they processed the scene and looked at the security footage.

Alteres posted...

He's going to be there a long ass time with the cops.

Might as well waste some time.

This.

Jetblackmoon posted...

That's crazy. Glad you're okay TC.

Thank you. I'm fine, and the store was empty. No other customers. My guess is that was also planned. They'd probably been watching the store for a while waiting for the right moment. Which is kind of a creepy thought. >_>

ExtremeLuchador posted...

This happens like once a month in my area.

It's not that common around here, but it does happen occasionally. I've heard of at least 3 others in the last year or so. First time our store has ever been touched, though. We're pretty much the only thing open 24 hours in the area, so there's FAR easier targets and it's usually not worth the risk. Probably wasn't tonight, either. That ATM hadn't been filled all day, and we don't put much in it to begin with. :-/

BobanMarjanovic posted...

Do you work in a bad city/town?

Not really. It's a pretty nice neighborhood overall. Relatively well-off suburb of Cleveland. This is a pretty big event for this town. We had a customer come in around 6am while we were finishing cleaning (already open again) that said she already heard about it on the news and was surprised how you could barely tell anything had happened. Like I said, the damage actually turned out to be surprisingly minor to the store itself. Bunch of broken wine bottles, a broken shelf from the ATM falling onto it, and some crushed snack bars is about it.
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I always thought they made ATM purposely heavy, so that it's not easy to move the way they moved it. Also, don't they put trackers on them?

At any rate, glad to see you're ok TC. Any thoughts about a potential job change after this experience?

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Twin3Turbo posted...

I always thought they made ATM purposely heavy, so that it's not easy to move the way they moved it. Also, don't they put trackers on them?

They are heavy. But they've got 3 decently in-shape guys to pick it up. It's definitely manageable. The purpose of the "smash" part of a "smash & grab" is to knock the ATM over and break any bolts in case it's fixed to the ground.

And some companies put trackers in the ATMs, but it's not a universal thing. Especially for the cheaper ones, which ours was.

Twin3Turbo posted...

Any thoughts about a potential job change after this experience?

To be honest, not really. Considering how quickly the cops showed up after I hit the alarm, there literally wasn't anything else the thugs could have done and still gotten away. Any problems or distractions and they would've been caught. And they knew that, too. I'd imagine most criminals in the area know that. It's literally within 1 mile of 3 different townships' police stations. It's honestly one of the safest places you can be in the middle of the night. 3 of the responding officers had actually been in at different times earlier that night for coffee and snacks. If someone tries to rob us, there's practically a 50/50 chance a cop will pull in right in the middle of it even if I don't hit the alarm.

Hurting me was not part of their plan. And it doesn't seem like it would be part of anybody's plan unless they were actively trying to get caught. I have no worries about my safety at all. I'll be back there for my regular shift tonight, and there probably won't be any change beyond a new crazy story to tell my regulars.
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Damn, that's wild. Do you still feel safe working nights at a gas station? Are they going to give you any days off at least?

EDIT: Oops, nevermind. Someone already asked my question.
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smoke_break posted...

Damn, that's wild. Do you still feel safe working nights at a gas station? Are they going to give you any days off at least?

I still feel perfectly safe. I've gotten to know all the cops over the 2 and a half years I've worked there, and I have total faith in the vast majority of them. They're genuinely some very good people. One of them actually told me tonight that he "couldn't believe we let this happen to one of our guys." They've gone out of their way to check on me and make sure I'm okay many times in the past. A couple of times I've had them just stop in to give me a heads up that something had happened that night, and if I saw a certain car or particular person I should try to avoid them and call the station right away. Sort of a "hey buddy, we're looking for this guy and he's not someone to fuck with, so if you see him you get yourself safe and let us know."

I probably could have asked for a few days off, but I didn't see the point so I didn't bother.
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nice

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Jetblackmoon posted...

That's crazy. Glad you're okay TC.

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It's cool that you feel safe, there's little of that nowadays.

That response time was nice.
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I'm legit surprised more businesses haven't started to install safety bollards to stop this kind of tactic.
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Future_Trunks posted...

Pics??

Like I said, I forgot to take them before I left. And most of it had already been cleaned up anyway. I'll try to remember to snap a couple when I go in tonight.

Paragon21XX posted...

I'm legit surprised more businesses haven't started to install safety bollards to stop this kind of tactic.

I wouldn't be surprised if we had something installed now. We've got a couple of smaller round concrete planters dotted along the front of the store, that our manager likes to plant and tend flowers in. The owner mentioned maybe getting a couple more to put on either side of the doorway, and that should be a pretty effective deterrent while still looking nice. Like I said, it's in a fairly well-off suburb, so appearance is kind of a big deal with local officials. Normal bollards would be an "eye-sore" and probably not allowed. -_-
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Aristoph posted...

I still feel perfectly safe. I've gotten to know all the cops over the 2 and a half years I've worked there, and I have total faith in the vast majority of them. They're genuinely some very good people. One of them actually told me tonight that he "couldn't believe we let this happen to one of our guys." They've gone out of their way to check on me and make sure I'm okay many times in the past. A couple of times I've had them just stop in to give me a heads up that something had happened that night, and if I saw a certain car or particular person I should try to avoid them and call the station right away. Sort of a "hey buddy, we're looking for this guy and he's not someone to f*** with, so if you see him you get yourself safe and let us know."

This is pretty cool.
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Damn, hopefully tonights a little more laid back
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Do they still make employees pay for drive-offs?
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ExtremeLuchador posted...

Do they still make employees pay for drive-offs?

Not here we don't. Don't know about any other stations, but my boss just gets their plates from the cameras, files a report, and lets the cops deal with it. We have a couple of plowing and landscaping companies that have accounts with us, so I personally just go with a blanket "if you're not driving a plow truck, you pay first." I've only had one incident myself, and the guy genuinely just forgot to come inside after he was done pumping. He came back like an hour later apologizing and paid for it.

And a couple pics of what remains damage-wise:
https://imgtc.ws/a/07VPQ2c

In the third pic, you can see my laptop in the right corner of the window with the small displays next to it. That's where I was sitting when it happened. In the last pic, the ATM was basically right where the sunglasses display is now.

I still can't believe none of the glass broke. And that damn door is still fully functional, as twisted as the frame was. We bent it back a little bit, but surprisingly little needed to be done for the store to be pretty much fully operational again. No worries about being able to lock the door, seeing as we're open 24/7 and it's been over a year since we had any need to lock the store up.
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A friend of mine worked at a convenience store that got hit by pros one night. They went in through the roof, cut the security cameras and alarm and broke into the safe and stole cigarettes and juul pods lol

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l0bcity posted...

Damn, hopefully tonights a little more laid back

I expect we're pretty much the single safest place in the state for the next couple months. I've already lost count of how many times the cops have cruised through the lot tonight just to give me a thumbs up and check in. Like I said, they're really good people. They're watching this place like a hawk, and they're making sure everyone knows that. Nobody's gonna be stupid enough to try anything here again for a long time.
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thronedfire2 posted...

A friend of mine worked at a convenience store that got hit by pros one night. They went in through the roof, cut the security cameras and alarm and broke into the safe and stole cigarettes and juul pods lol

It's pretty crazy how much money is in cigarettes and vapes. A case of cigarettes could easily be a couple grand, considering a carton can cost upwards of $100 in some places and a case usually holds about 40 of them.
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Bump for the morning crowd.
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EIiza posted...

What did the thieves look like? Were you able to give a description to the cops?

The first one into the store pointed at me and told me to stay back, all I could see was around his eyes. Black guy, judging from his voice I'd guess somewhere in the 18-25 range. Only a sidelong glance at the second guy, he never faced me directly, and I think he was black too. They had white bandanas covering their faces, and the short glance looked like a distinct color difference between the bandana and the tiny bit of his face I caught a glimpse of. But I'm not 100% sure on that. And I didn't get any look at the third guy beyond seeing his back as they jumped back into the car. So basically my description amounted to "1 early-20's black guy, and 2 other guys I really couldn't say for sure about."
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LepartialJury posted...

That sounds utterly terrifying. Ive never had anything happen like that before and I hope I never do. But what matters most is that you arent hurt.
But were you also the guy who had a crazy coworker? I seem to recall another gas station attendant here who had a crazy coworker get fired.

Yeah, that was me too. >_< I also had a girl offer to show me her tits if I'd let her buy a case of beer after cutoff a few weeks ago.

It's been a strange couple of months. XD
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LepartialJury posted...

Domino effect of incidents huh? Now thats something Ive experienced lol.

Yeah. They say it comes in 3's, though, so hopefully I've fulfilled my quota for a while. XD

LepartialJury posted...

I think that one actually affected you more. You were even considering quitting because of it iirc. Have you seen him around since?

It definitely did. That guy was genuinely unhinged, and I knew so little about him before that incident that I had no real way of knowing just how far he was willing to go. But no, I haven't seen him since then. And after hearing from others who did know him better, I'm not really worried about him anymore. Sounds like he was going through some tough shit at the time, and while that's not an excuse for acting the way he did it does mean he's probably calmed down and (hopefully) gotten his life straightened out a bit.

That guy scared me because he was after me. This smash & grab wasn't as big of a deal because it was so clear that I wasn't the target. They didn't want anything to do with me. They just wanted the ATM, and I was perfectly safe as long as I didn't try to get in the way.
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Retelling this story to so many customers over the last couple days has made me realize: people are seriously fucking stupid.

I just had a lady come in a few minutes ago. She'd been in yesterday and I'd already told her the story. Apparently she'd been thinking about it all day, and couldn't figure out how they made any money doing this. In her words "They'd get, what, like $1000 from that thing? How would that even cover the repairs to their car??"

She thought they rammed the store with their own car. Dafuq? The car was stolen. Obviously. Does it get much more common sense than that? They left the smash vehicle here. And I had told her that yesterday. When I reminded her they left it behind, she said "yeah, but they'll pick it up from the impound eventually, right?"

O_o

I've never wanted to smash my head into a desk as hard as I did at that moment. Sure, they're totally going to use their own car to ram into a store and steal an ATM, and then they're going to go to the police impound lot to claim the vehicle. Totally. Makes perfect sense. -_-
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bump
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I want to hear this crazy coworker story.
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MarshallStack posted...

I want to hear this crazy coworker story.

It's really not as interesting as it sounds. The only reason it shook me up more than the smash & grab was because there was so much unknown at the time. I knew practically nothing about the guy and it came almost completely out of the blue from my perspective.

Basically, we hired a new guy a few months back. I guess he had worked for the owner years ago and recently come back into town and was looking for a job. I didn't find this out until after the incident, but apparently he'd been going through some rough shit for a bit and had begun taking it out on coworkers. He'd been yelling at people for doing things in a way that was (according to him) wrong, even though it was exactly how they'd been shown to do it, and telling people they were lazy and how he was sick of having to "do everybody else's work for them", stupid shit like that. Again, since I never worked with him I had no knowledge of all this escalating for a couple weeks.

Then one night I came in and he had worked the shift before me. On the paperwork with my starting counts, shift time, etc, he had written a pretty disgusting slur above my name. I won't go into the details, but think along the lines of the N-word or rapist. It was a pretty nasty thing to do in general, and he did it on official papers that he explicitly knew the owner and manager were going to see. He's not very bright. I, of course, immediately showed the manager and talked to the owner about it. The owner said he talked to the guy and thought it had been straightened out. The next night my shift goes like any other, until the morning crew came in. He was working that morning, and pretty much immediately upon walking into the store he starts screaming at me at the top of his lungs, calling me some really, really vile things right in front of our other coworker and several customers. He even at one point called me a "chomo" (short for child molester). He was obviously completely unhinged at this point, and somehow I managed not to respond to him at all. I just grabbed my stuff, clocked out, and left without saying a word. I was literally shaking when I pulled into my garage at home. I immediately called the owner, told him what happened, and said something along the lines of "he should have been fired already, if he's not fired TODAY I'm not setting foot in that store again. Let me know when it's done." Then I got ahold of my therapist and had a little impromptu session for about 20 minutes on the phone just to get my head straight.

I looked him up out of curiosity later and found that he was actually on the sex offender registry for multiple convictions for molesting children and served quite a few years. I guess prison just ingrained "chomo" into him as a standard insult? I dunno. It was all pretty fucked up. -_-

It was a thursday or friday, I think, and I took the weekend off because I didn't know if this guy was going to blame me for losing his job when he was already having a rough time and might come back to get revenge or something. Everything seemed to more-or-less blow over after that, though, and the owner has been almost excessively respectful and nice to me ever since and there haven't been any more issues. Haven't seen the psycho since.
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jesus christ. hope you're okay dude
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This didnt happen.

DontCallTheCops posted...

This didnt happen.

I think it didn't just because they usually bolt that shit to floor.

But I digress. Couple weeks ago I got a dude fired for taking a blatantly obvious fake hundred dollar bill. Store lost 28 dollars in merchandise and 70 dollars in change. Fuckin people so I can believe that shit bro
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Youre gloating about getting someone fired?

DontCallTheCops posted...

Youre gloating about getting someone fired?

Yes. When the bill is so fake it even says on it it's not the money it's a joke. Let's not even get into all the Russian written on it. I'm paid to run the store. Homie don't play when it comes to the integrity of the money.
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DontCallTheCops posted...

This didnt happen.

Are you talking about me or whatever the deleted post before you said?

I mean...I literally posted pictures of the damage?

slimjimfizzle posted...

I think it didn't just because they usually bolt that s*** to floor.

Not always. Especially the cheap ones, like ours was. It's irrelevant anyway. That's the entire point of the "smash" part of a "smash & grab." They run into the ATM in order to break the bolts holding it down and get it free. The confusion and chaos is just a bonus to help them get in and out with less resistance from anybody in the store.
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it would make me unreasonable happy if you put up a "I assure you we're open" sign on the fake wall.
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Aristoph posted...

Twin3Turbo posted...

I always thought they made ATM purposely heavy, so that it's not easy to move the way they moved it. Also, don't they put trackers on them?

They are heavy. But they've got 3 decently in-shape guys to pick it up. It's definitely manageable. The purpose of the "smash" part of a "smash & grab" is to knock the ATM over and break any bolts in case it's fixed to the ground.

And some companies put trackers in the ATMs, but it's not a universal thing. Especially for the cheaper ones, which ours was.

Twin3Turbo posted...

Any thoughts about a potential job change after this experience?

To be honest, not really. Considering how quickly the cops showed up after I hit the alarm, there literally wasn't anything else the thugs could have done and still gotten away. Any problems or distractions and they would've been caught. And they knew that, too. I'd imagine most criminals in the area know that. It's literally within 1 mile of 3 different townships' police stations. It's honestly one of the safest places you can be in the middle of the night. 3 of the responding officers had actually been in at different times earlier that night for coffee and snacks. If someone tries to rob us, there's practically a 50/50 chance a cop will pull in right in the middle of it even if I don't hit the alarm.

Hurting me was not part of their plan. And it doesn't seem like it would be part of anybody's plan unless they were actively trying to get caught. I have no worries about my safety at all. I'll be back there for my regular shift tonight, and there probably won't be any change beyond a new crazy story to tell my regulars.

Most criminals dont wanna add murder charges fortunately. Makes the sentence harsher but also makes their capture higher priority. Glad you are safe and was smart enough to not do anything risky over someone elses money.
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Medussa posted...

it would make me unreasonable happy if you put up a "I assure you we're open" sign on the fake wall.

XD

I kinda want to do that now. I should suggest it to the owner. Sounds like the boards are gonna be up for a while since he has to go through corporate to get everything fixed. Might as well lean into it to make the best of a bad situation.

mooreandrew58 posted...

Most criminals dont wanna add murder charges fortunately. Makes the sentence harsher but also makes their capture higher priority. Glad you are safe and was smart enough to not do anything risky over someone elses money.

So very true. People keep asking me how scared I was, and I keep telling them I wasn't really scared at all. A bit shocked right when the impact happened, but after that it was more fascinating than scary. It was kind of neat in a weird way watching how practiced the whole thing was. You don't have to respect what they were doing, but you gotta respect how they did it. Fucking professional as hell. No distractions, no delays, nothing unexpected for them. They were damn good at what they do, and I appreciated that. It's when things go sideways that someone gets hurt.

It's like you said, most of these guys really don't want to hurt anybody in the process. It adds extra charges if they get caught, and it also makes them more likely to get caught, neither of which is in their own best interest. They just want to get in, do their job, and get out as quickly and painlessly as possible.

The only scary moment was when the first guy walked in. The moment he pointed at me and didn't have a gun in his hand, I knew I was going to be fine.
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I don't know why people are calling him a liar. A few years ago they arrested three guys for doing this at about 15-20 gas stations in my area.
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