Circle K Clerk Stops Robbery With Gun, Says He Was Fired for Defending Himself
“Former Stow Circle K employee says he was fired after shooting gun at robbery suspects: ‘I opened fire to protect myself and my coworker’,” a Friday headline by NBC Cleveland affiliate WKYC reads. “Kendrick Watson Kendrick Watson won’t face criminal charges after opening fire on a group of robbery suspects at a Stow gas station, but he says the incident cost him his job.”
The robbery attempt was terrifying and life-threatening. “[S]everal suspects arrived in two stolen minivans [and] one of the minivans rammed into the front of the store multiple times, shattering the glass entrance. Several suspects then got out of the vehicles and approached the store,” the report notes.
“Once they rushed the store, I thought my life and my coworker’s life at the time was in danger, so I opened fire to protect myself and my coworker,” clerk Kendrick Watson, who had been with the company for six years, recalled. “Who knows what they could’ve done? So that’s why I did what I did.”
The attempt in broad daylight, was also brazen. Aside from the ubiquitous surveillance cameras proving to be no deterrent whatsoever, that location is across the street from the Stow Municipal Courthouse, where there is a heavy police presence (and it’s also next to a freeway on ramp which it appears the unknown escapees used for a quick getaway).
Also brazen was a piece of information from another report on the robbery attempt:
Body camera video shows Stow Police arresting one suspect. A man wearing an ankle monitor under watch by the courts for another crime.
Fortunately for Watson, Stow police consider what he did was lawful and no charges will be filed. Unfortunately for him, having a gun violated Circle K’s “Zero tolerance” for guns in the workplace policy. That’s despite no shortage of news stories where hapless clerks paid the ultimate price for complying with corporate rules:
- Grand jury indicts man in death of Bells store employee during robbery
- Broadway Market clerk shot and killed in early morning robbery
- Convenience store clerk shot during robbery on South Side, police say
- Father, son plead guilty to murder in 2023 JC convenience store killing
- Community mourns store clerk killed in Berkeley County armed robbery
The list could go on (and on) but the point is made.
Instructing employees to “Just give them what they want” presupposes what “they” want isn’t your life, and that’s a bet the employees in the above headlines lost. It’s not property or money being threatened, after all, it’s human lives, and anyone evil and deranged enough to kill someone over that is no one to take any chances with—no matter what some petty human resources wonk from the relative security of their corporate DEI job says.
For the companies involved, it’s a risk management equation, and the occasional dead lower-level employee, who can be easily replaced, is a cost of doing business. They don’t want to be sued over shots gone wild, as happened at the Circle K, where in addition to a suspect vehicle, Watson also hit a pump and a canopy support pole. That this could be improved by having better trained employees is something they’re not prepared to pay for.
For the lower-level employee, it boils down to a simple question:
Is this job really worth my life?
Related Reading: Let Anti-Gun Convenience Store Chain President Put His Money Where His Mouth Is
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
