Video: Clerk knocks out robber

Mostafa Kamel Hendi, armed with what was later identified as a pellet gun, attempted to rob the We Buy Gold shop in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The store clerk, Derek Mothershead, punched him in the nose and knocked him out. While waiting for police to arrive, Mothershead handed Hendi a roll of paper towels and made him clean the floor of his own blood. "Caught On Tape: Clerk Punches, Knocks Out Armed Robber" (WYFF)

• [Akula971]

  Sweeeeet

  • [Ant]

    Dude

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      What does mine say?

• [MrRocking]

  Doesn’t the robber know anything? You can’t leave a Cash for Gold joint with your dignity.

  • [huggles huggles]

    What do you mean? I used to work in a cash for gold store, then I took an arrow in the knee.

• [TokenCapitalist]

  This is why if you practice concealed carry, you have to be consistent about it. I don’t blame the clerk, there are reasons someone forgets or can’t carry at times.

  His only mistake was after punching the guy to not restrain him and maintain distance. The robber could’ve easily had a knife on him. This is why cops very carefully approach suspects, and furthermore, make them take the positions they do on the ground.

  Armchair quarterbacking aside, that clerk has balls. Respect.

• [Leto_Atreides]

  In Canada, he would have been charged with assault and fired from his job. Then the robber would become a national nero.

  • [Ito Kagehisa]

    Yeah, but in Soviet Russia, the japanese are stealing your spice, Leto.

  • [D Wyatt]

    “robber would become a national nero”
    National Nero: Definition- a small semi-disabled fish with one small flipper and one large, capable of literally swimming circles around other fish-Nationally…

    • [Phillip Ginder]

      That’s a National Nemo. National Nero is a symbol meaning “nothing” or “null”, a placeholder invented in the Middle East.

• [Lemoutan]

  I’m concerned that Mothershead has simply ensured that the next attempted robbery will be carried out by one with a more powerful weapon, by one who is prepared to use it and by one who isn’t bothered by the small reward that Mothershead advertises.

  The number of people fulfilling all three conditions is likely to be zero, but – perhaps paradoxically – adding a fourth condition (idiocy, for example) might increase the probability of actualisation and an unhappy outcome.

  • [Ito Kagehisa]

    I guess everyone has to be concerned about something?

  • [Snig]

    And if he hadn’t been punched, and had gotten away, other robbers, or the same robber, would possibly be encouraged to rob them with a gun again.  

    • [Lemoutan]

      Not sure what would ‘encourage’ them. The normal, but in this case conterfactual, scenario you describe would not have been newsworthy. SNAFU, as they used to say.

      I.e. what you’re describing happens anyway. What I’m describing is a possible (though unlikely) arms race.

      Is all.

  • [noah django]

    well, the flaw in your logic is that you expect that these subsequent robbers are going to have seen this newscast and are going to apply your logical conclusions toward these upcoming robberies when, in fact, they are actually all on crack.

    • [Lemoutan]

      I’m not sure it’s altogether fair to characterise the premise of the established newsworthiness of this tale as a logical flaw. But I take your point that this may be irrelevant to the population under discussion.

• [Eddie Perkins]

  Let me guess, the clerk was then promptly fired.

  • [surreality]

    In the clip, his boss says he’s going to “let it slide”. Probably because it ended well instead of poorly.

• [JohnBerry]

  I have worked at places that had strict “hand over the cash” policies. I have seen people fired for arguing with a robber or not handing over the cash. When the boss says that giving the bad-guys the money is the only acceptable action then who am I to argue? Especially with an armed robber.

  • [Cowicide]

    The only problem is there’s plenty of occurrences where people hand over the money and then they get shot anyway (no witnesses).  Then again, I guess in the end it probably is a lot safer to just hand over the money in most cases.

    • [Snig]

      If it’s money you give it up, if you feel it’s your life, you try to escape/ fight 100%.  If money de-escelates the situtation great, if he still seems like he’s going to kill you, try to escape or fight him.  Running from a gunman likely has better odds in real life than it does in the movies, though situations vary. The guy who is attacked never does anything “wrong”, as in my mind 100% of the wrongness comes from the guy holding the gun. 

• [jimmoffet]

  9 times out of 10, the clerk that fights back gets shot.

  Word of advice, give the guy with the gun the gold. Businesses have “hand over the cash” policies because it dramatically reduces the number of their employees that get killed on the job.

  It’s cute that he made him clean up his own blood, very macho, but the whole thing was incredibly stupid and terrible lesson for anyone watching it.

  • [noah django]

    and then there’s the lifetime of self-loathing inherent in letting a shifty base-head rob you when you knew you coulda flattened him.  sounds like it doesn’t bother you, though, Jimmy.

    • [MarcVader]

      There’s also the scenario where you end up paralyzed by gunshots and have the rest of your life to regret not just handing over the cash.

• [exhipigeonist]

  00:48 “If he wants money, get a job, work, like everybody else in this world.”

  I hope I’m not the only one who finds this sentiment incredibly depressing.

• [PapayaSF]

  Making a robber clean up his own blood: Like a boss!

• [Marc Mielke]

  It’s likely the clerk recognized the weapon to be a pellet gun, so he wasn’t being overly stupid or anything. It’s not too difficult to tell the difference; I’d imagine the difficulty is keeping your wits about you while a gun is in your face. 

  (Cue ‘replica’ scene from Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels)

• [Secret Gonyea Blog]

  Wow. Seth Rogan knocked that guy the fuck out.