The Michigan Court of Appeals threw out a manslaughter charge against a Detroit gas station clerk who locked the door before an angry customer shot three bystanders, killing one.
Prosecutors have argued that clerk Al-Hassan Aiyash’s actions make him criminally responsible. But the appeals court said an involuntary manslaughter charge doesn’t fit.
It was “not reasonably foreseeable” that the customer, Samuel McCray, would pull out a gun and start shooting, the court said Wednesday.
In this case, though, it probably wasn’t $3.80. That’s what the cost would have been to the owner of the gas station, but to the cashier, letting a customer walk with goods could cost them their job. Definitely a different risk/reward
I don’t know the details of the exchange in the store, but it sounds like it would have qualified as a strong arm robbery. The cashier was not giving away anything, the other person was forcibly taking it. Not sure what employer would fire somebody for being robbed, but that would factor into the risk / reward consideration. Is the risk of being required to put your physical safety at risk worth what I assume to be a minimum wage job? Maybe, for his situation, it was.
you WILL get fired if you’re a gas station clerk, someone steals something and you don’t bother to chase them down for it on camera; it happened to me while was in college and i decided not to chase the bat & pocket knife wielding pair of teenagers who stole $20 worth of candy. (adjusted for inflation, i would assume it’s $1,000,000 worth of candy nowadays).
If the risk of physical harm or potential death was worth the reward of keeping that job, then that was the right decision for you. To me, no job has ever been worth the risk of violence or harm to myself or any other person.
I’m not not passing any judgement, just asking people to stop and think about potential consequences before acting.
Edit: Having worked at gas stations / convinience stores, fast food, and retail, I can assure you that not all gas stations or similar employers will fire their employees for not confronting robbers.
your exception doesn’t disprove the trend and; if you weighed the very strong chances of losing your job vs the infinitesimally small chance of losing your life; the risk becomes closer to dying in a car accident while commuting to work. no one questions the risk-to-reward ratio of commuting to work.
You are making several claims here that I’m not sure are accurate.
What trend? Do you have any sources I could review to support that there is a trend and that your scenario is not an exception?
Do you have any sources I can review to support that most armed assailants will not resort to violence when confronted by or prevented from fleeing by a lone civilian?
Do you have any sources I can review to support that driving is more dangerous than confronting an armed assailant?
Who cares? At the end of the day, someone didn’t want to get hurt and they almost got a prison sentence because of it.
Are we incapable of recognizing that at least?
I would argue that by locking the door, trapping the aggressor in the same room with the cashier and other customers, the intent of the cashier was to avoid theft and not to avoid getting hurt.
To go back to my original point, I personally do not think that he exercised good judgement in evaluating the risk vs reward of his actions.
He placed the value of his employers property above the value of his safety, the safety of the other customers and the safety of the rest of his employers property should the aggressor resort to acts of violence or vandalism in an attempt to secure his freedom.
I agree that trapping a potentially violent person in, basically cornering them and escalating the situation, was a bad decision. I also agree with the court that it doesn’t fall into that category. It looks like lesser charges will still be pursued, probably more in line with negligence. It’s good that in response it’s now illegal to lock doors like that while customers are inside. I would have thought the general rule of keeping doors unlocked during business hours (as a fire code mostly) would have covered that already.
a source that records this type of information requires a people to provide legal proof that they’re breaking the law as well as providing evidence that opens them up legal & financial liability; but i’m sure you knew that and asked for a source anyways knowing that it’s impossible in order to shut down a counter argument and help support your point.
the closest thing you can get to it are surveys done by pollsters and that’s private information and is only shared to subscribers who are sometimes also journalists who write articles that sometimes shared it on reddit; where i learned of it from; and i wouldn’t be surprised if you knew that too.
I am not aware of that. Nor of any such organization existing. Could you name what these resources are? I would be interested in learning more.
Are you aware of any articles written by these journalists? Can you share a link to the reddit post where you learned this from?
I’m not trying to shut anything down. This is not a “I’m right your wrong” discussion. You have your experiences which you have used to form your valid opinion. I have my experiences that I have used to form mine.
As for my “point”, it was a request that people “please try to keep perspective of what is true risk / reward for pursuing vs walking away”. Is that what you are arguing against?
nevermind