Next week the kanadian kops will tell would be victims of rapists: "Just lay back and take it, you may enjoy the experience."
[url]www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-05-18-0011.html[/url]
Friday, May 18, 2001
Corner-store Rambos not the
answer
By DOUG BEAZLEY, EDMONTON SUN
There are better ways of making a living, even at minimum
wage. Still, when you hold the staff record for most times
robbed, you can't help but feel a modest glow of pride for
every month you tough it out.
Maria's been toughing it out for seven years. "It's kind of a
scuzzy neighbourhood," she said yesterday, getting ready to
start yet another night shift behind the scarred Formica
counter at a downtown gas bar.
"Mostly druggies, transients, hookers and mooches. We've
seen it all. People come in here covered with blood all the
time. I've been robbed four times. Nothing fazes us."
Nothing much - not after last week, when a would-be
robber came into the shop and spritzed one of Maria's
co-workers in the face with what the bandit claimed was
AIDS-infected blood.
That one got away empty-handed. Most who come into the
shop looking for an easy score wind up disappointed.
There's a metal pipe and a crowbar under the counter, for
emergencies. The till's usually got $30 in it, tops, and
Maria's not giving it up without an argument.
"The first time I got robbed, he came in and showed me a
crowbar under his jacket and said, 'Gimme the money,' "
she said. "He seemed OK, no real threat, just desperate for
a fix. I said I wasn't going to give him money for drugs. I
gave him a pack of smokes and he left.
"The last one, he had a gun. Or it looked like a real gun to
me. I wasn't going to test it out. He got $65."
Hardly a Brinks job, but then convenience store robberies
tend to be underplanned exercises born of desperation.
Since the start of the year, Edmonton's seen 50 bank
robbery attempts and a whopping 175 "commercial"
robberies - the vast majority of those aimed at gas stations
and corner stores.