What would you do if a guy walked into the store that you worked at, said that he was going to decapitate you, and started acting aggressively towards you?
Would you think that he was joking? Would you think that just because he was 58, he was “harmless,” some kind of obnoxiously grumpy teddy bear?
Or would you take his words and actions as the very real threats that they appeared to be?
I suspect that the last option would be your answer and that you’d respond appropriately to deescalate or, if deescalation wasn’t possible, stop the threat.
That’s exactly the position that a young mother recently found herself in. Her choice was to make sure that she was able to go home to see her kids. Her employer’s response? Disgusting. John R. Lott, Jr. writes,
Yet last week, 7-Eleven fired the 25-year-old after she used her gun to save her own life. Private companies have every right to set rules for employee behavior, but many corporate policies that require workers to remain passive and comply with criminals’ demands rest on a deeply mistaken view of crime data.
“He threatened me,” Dilyard told Fox 25 in Oklahoma City. “[A]nd said he was gonna slice my head off, and that’s when I tried to call the police. He started throwing things at me, came behind the counter. I tried to run off, but he grabbed his hands around my neck, and pushed me out of the counter space, and that’s when I pulled out my gun and I shot him.”
“I had to choose between my job and my life,” she said. “And I will always choose my life because people depend on me. My kids need me here.”
She survived with wounds to her neck and hands – injuries that could have been far worse.
It really could have been much worse. Her children could have been orphans, so she made the right decision to save her life.
What is 7-Eleven’s preferred way to combat a violent attacker? Use only “store items” to defend herself.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel confident that hitting someone with a bag of puffy Cheetos is going to even slow them down.
Maybe she would have been better served throwing a pack of crackers at him. Or a small bag of peanuts.
Even something more solid like a 20 ounce drink isn’t going to stop a determined attacker. Hardly a chance.
Now, to be fair to 7-Eleven, they may be going off of data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey which lumps in a variety of different types of responses under the umbrella idea of active resistance.
But not all types of resistance are the same, and some actually are likely to increase the attacker’s violence.
But carrying a gun?
By contrast, the safest option for a woman confronted by a criminal is to have a gun. Women who rely on passive behavior are 2.5 times more likely to suffer serious injury than women who defend themselves with a firearm.
Stephanie Dilyard did the right thing. 7-Eleven should support her in that.
