Surviving An Armed Robbery

One of my readers in Ill Annoy, excuse me, Illinois, saw my posting from last June where I mentioned having once been in an armed robbery.  She asked me about that, and at that time I wasn't sure that I had the time to tell her that story in sufficient detail as to pass along what it was really like.  She may have put the bug in my ear to devote a blog posting to that event, or I might have thought it up to post here about it......I can't remember.

I do remember the robbery very well.  It was over thirty years ago.  I also don't think about it very much.  It may come up in a conversation once every five years or so.  My mother mentioned it to me during a Christmas visit a few years back when she remarked that I have had an interesting life, and aside from mentioning twice here in passing, maybe three times, it isn't something I think about on a regular basis.  I did write down on a sheet of paper what happened when I got home because I was anticipating testifying in court against the robber, but it never got to that.  I also committed to memory the details about this and the face of the robber.  Even though it's been over thirty years since I have seen him I would have no trouble recognizing him today.

This robbery took place shortly after midnight on or about the 22nd of December, 1978.  I may be off by a day here; it may have been the early morning hours of the 23rd.  I know I can search thru my papers here and determine the exact date but that's of little significance.  The point I'm trying to make here is that this is something that happened shortly before Christmas.

At that time, I was working at a Jack-in-the-Box in San Jose, California.  This was the one at Blossom Hill and Snell if you happen to be in San Jose and want to drive by it sometime, but it doesn't look the same now as it did then as that it was remodeled a long time ago.  In those days, Jack was open 24 hours a day, only closing on Christmas Day.  I had been there for a year, save for a two month hiatus, and needing some money I had gone back to work for them.

During the time that I worked there, I had a feeling all along that the place would be robbed one night and I would be there.  The manager, Clayton, stressed that in the event of the robbery, give the robber the money.  Don't try to be a hero.  He also stressed that no more than $60 was to be kept in the till, with the rest being dropped in the safe.  The store had robbery insurance, but would only cover a loss of $60.  Anything after that came out of Jack's profits.  While on a trip to Nebraska that summer, the place was robbed, but I still had this feeling that it would happen again, and that I would be there.

About two or three days after I resumed working there, it happened.

Here's how it went down.

Jack was open 24/7 in those days, but the dining room would be closed at 11:00 PMish.  The drive-thru was open.  That night I had the 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM shift, and was working "backup", meaning that I was bagging the orders and handing them over to the cashier who would then hand them out to the car.  It was fast paced, not the best of work, but when you're a college kid you like having whatever money you can get your hands on.

Shortly after midnight, a black man showed up at the front door.  He was wearing a well-used denim jacket and denim jeans.  Underneath the denim jacket was a white T-shirt.  He was about my height, and 30ish.  Milton, the first assistant manager, was on duty that night, and he went to greet this guy at the door.  We thought he was a friend of Milton's as that Milton is black, and Milton had opened the door to talk to him.  They were chatting for about five minutes or so and the rest of us weren't paying very much notice.  I was bagging orders, Elizabeth was handing them out, and we had others who were making the hamburgers, tacos and french fries.

After about five minutes, Milton and his "friend" slowly walked up to the counter, still in conversation.  OK, Milton is letting his friend in as a special favor, and the two of them are going to have a nice visit in the now-closed dining room over a late supper.  You get to do things like that if you have a manager friend at Jack-in-the-Box; it wasn't unprecedented.  A few times Hal would come visit me, sometimes still in his McDonald's uniform, where he worked.

It was when Milton and his "friend" were at the counter where things changed.  Milton said to the cashier, "Elizabeth, can you reach down and hand a 'six' bag over to us?"  I thought "what the, oh crap, the place is being robbed!"  Elizabeth didn't either hear or get what was about to go down, so I reached down, got the six bag, and handed it over to Milton.

Then Milton said "now everybody, be cool.  Be real cool.  Elizabeth, reach into the till, and hand over the money".  The robber at that point was displaying his gun to let us know that we were being knocked over, and he stated that he also wanted the rolled coin.  Milton also asked him if he wanted the loose coins, and the robber said, "no, I don't want no change!".  The robber then noticed that there was another register there for dining room service, and upon demanding that we open it for his inspection he was frustrated that there wasn't so much as a cash drawer.  It had long been taken upstairs where another assistant manager was there, taking care of some paperwork.

At that point, the crew in the back noticed that we were all standing still at the front.  One of them went upstairs to notify Mike T, the swing manager, that a robbery was taking place.  Mike got on the phone to summon help.  A couple of others snuck out the back door.  The robber saw that, didn't like it, and wanted them back.  Milton yelled for them to come back, but they didn't.....and for good reason I might add.   It was at that point that the longest minutes of my life started.

What had then developed was a hostage situation.  The robber had the gun out.  It was a small .25 caliber semiauto; I'd guess a Jennings/Bryco.  He had a bag with $92 of currency and several rolls of coin.  He had five or six of us there, and he was not happy.  What he was lacking was a getaway car.  He wanted someone to hand over the keys so that he could drive away.

At that point the thought of handing him the car keys very quickly crossed my mind but as instantly as that thought arrived I dismissed it.  What was to stop him from killing me once he got the keys?  What was to stop him from taking me along for the ride?  At this point he's committing a felony.  What was to stop him from committing another?

He repeated his demand that someone turn a car over to him.  No one budged.  He became more frustrated. And me, I'm praying fervently.  I wasn't ready to meet my Maker that night.  I was begging God to get me out of this somehow.  The minutes seemed to drag on.  How long was this going to go on?  Why won't he leave? Where are the cops?  And while this was going on, I was studying the robber's face in minute detail.  I was memorizing that scar on his nose.  I was getting as good of a look as I could at him.  It was occurring to me that I might be having the opportunity to identify this guy in a courtroom, and I was going to make sure that I was making sure.  I was engraving his image into my mind, for storage and later retrieval.

The next few minutes seemed to really take a long time to pass.  The robber stated that if someone didn't give him a car, that he would shoot the manager.  Then he would shoot the men, and then shoot the ladies.  He said "Usually it's the ladies first.  This time it's going to be the men first!"  He then interrogated us, one by one.

Everyone in there got the gun pointed at them.  The robber went from his left to his right, asking us each time, how we got to work.  I was the third person asked.  I said that I walked to work.  I had that gun pointed at me, and I'm lying about how I got to work that night.  I did have some incriminating evidence in my pocket, which were the keys to the family station wagon, on its own Chevrolet key fob.....though that wouldn't have done the robber any good as that I drove the Volkswagen into work that night instead.

The interrogation continued.  I heard a variety of excuses.  "My mom drove me in".  "I rode my bicycle".  "My friend dropped me off".  And I'm thinking, how much longer is this going to go on?  Where are the cops?  Lord God, will you please get me out of this mess?  I'll repent!  Please get me out of this!.

Still without a car, the robber got frustrated.  He said "now I happen to know that not everyone of you here got here by using the bus!"  He was going to continue the interrogation.  

It was at that moment that I saw a motion outside, from the drive-thru, to my right.  I turned my head to look at whatever it was that was going on there.  I saw a San Jose police officer with his .357 magnum service revolver out.  He was pointing it at the robber's head from outside, and I'd say he had about four feet to his target.

My looking over there caused the others to look.  All of a sudden, everyone wanted to know what I had seen.  At this moment, the robber was distracted.  Milton grabbed his gun arm and brought it forward.  The rest of ran.  I ran towards the back, halfway expecting the gun to fire and the bullet landing in to my back.  Mike C and I ran upstairs, to the roof....yeah, that was a dumb thing to do, but that was where we went.  I mentioned to Mike that I had turned twenty years old not even a week earlier, and that I was too young to die.  He said he was 18 I think, and was in agreement.  We then looked over the roof edge.

Down in the parking lot, there were at least four, maybe six, cruisers belonging to the San Jose Police Department.  They had silently approached, but the lights were turned on.  We saw several officers down there.  We shouted down, wanting to know if it was safe to come down.  It was, so we came down.

I ended up giving one of the officers a statement about what happened.  I got a chance to talk to the cop who had his revolver out.  He told me he was going to kill the robber.....it was a life threatening situation and the policy was to take the bad guy out.  He held fire when he observed the motion that I had kicked off by simply turning my head.  I didn't know it at the time, but I had unwittingly saved the robber's life by doing that.

After talking to the police, one of them remarked that "you've now got an interesting story to tell your friends!"  I was all smiles.  The officer also told me that these kinds of crimes tend to spike during the holidays.  I didn't see the robber or anything; I presumed that he was handcuffed and going on a ride downtown to be in the company of other felons.

I had quite the story for my parents and my friends the next day.  Three weeks later, I found another job.  I had had enough of Jack-in-the-Box and fast food.  I was hired by Pay Less Super Drug Stores, down the road at Almaden and Blossom Hill.  I didn't think much about the robbery after that, except to ask my former co-workers at Jack-in-the-Box what had happened.

The case was plea-bargained down to attempted armed robbery.  There were no action on other charges that could have been filed, such as carrying a concealed weapon without a permit or possessing a loaded firearm within the limits of an incorporated city, which California outlawed in 1923.  In the years I lived in that state, I never heard of a criminal being charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, but the authorities did diligently prosecute a nurse for that offense since some of her co-workers were being raped in the parking lot of the hospital in San Francisco where she worked at, and the serial rapist was still at large.

I have no idea what happened to the robber.  I have once in a great while thought about contacting the San Jose Police to see if I can still get a copy of their report after all these years, but I've never followed up on that.  If I were to get that report, I might google the robber to see if he ever made it to San Quentin.

One of the girls there, Patricia, did have nightmares about the robbery for six months afterward.  She was an emotional person but yet remained calm during the duration.  Me, I was also focused on being calm in the midst of all my thoughts and prayers.  I knew that I wasn't going to do anything stupid, but I also remember being very concerned about one of my co-workers doing something stupid and that I had no control over that.

After the cops had left, Mike, the shift manager, remarked that what had happened to us should happen to everybody, just to give them a lesson about how fragile life is.

My thoughts at that time were mixed.  It had been a harrowing experience, and here's this guy flippantly remarking about how this ought to happen to everybody just to teach them a lesson.

I didn't know whether to shake his hand or to punch him the mouth.