Clerk Foils Armed Robbery, Then Loses Her Job

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Betty Green never imagined she would be involved in a real-life robbery at the gas station where she was a clerk. The robber failed to get any money in the Saturday night attempted heist, but the Lexington, Ky., woman is now without a job because she failed to follow protocol, News 18 reports.

"I don't think anyone knows what you are going to do until it happens to you," Green told the Lexington, Ky, TV station, adding that she was fired because Speedway company policy requires turning over the cash in such situations.

Here's how Green handled things. When confronted at the register with a note that stated: "I don't want anyone to get hurt, take your money in the drawer, put it in a bag and give it to me," she reflexively told the robber "no" as he lifted his shirt to show a gun, she told the TV station.
Then "he grinned at me, picked up his purchases and left," Green said.

"I don't think anybody knows what you are going to do until it happens to you," said the former clerk, who managed to achieve a positive outcome by being nice.

Green was suspended after she called 911 because she failed to follow the Speedway business rules of handing over the cash and pressing the panic button.

The former clerk is hoping to get some justice because she was never told of two other Speedway robberies earlier in the day. She says if she had learned of them she might have reacted differently when her store was hit.

Lexington boxer Shawn Kirk was arrested for forcing his way into an apartment the following night and other gas station employees say he looks like their suspect, too.

"Right and wrong are important, and what he did was wrong. My outcome was right. No one was hurt and I was able to defuse the situation from getting worse," she said.

This is not the first time a convenience store clerk robbed at gunpoint has been fired for failure to adhere strictly to policy, as AOL Jobs has reported. A Cumberland Farms clerk in Massachusetts lost his job because there was more than $70 cash in the register when the robber entered the store.

Speedway Corporate said it could not comment on employee matters.