Iraq war vet stops robbery with RNC
“I look at the cashier, I kind of know him, I come in there every day. I whispered to him,…
“I look at the cashier, I kind of know him, I come in there every day. I whispered to him, I mouthed to him, ‘Are you getting robbed right now?’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ like really scared,” said Zack Thome, the GVSU college student who tackled the suspect.
The store, located at the busy corner of Fulton and Diamond SE in Grand Rapids, hasn’t been robbed in a decade or so, according to the owner, making the daylight robbery even more unusual.
“He (the suspect) said, ‘give me the money or I’m going to shoot you. I have a gun in my pocket. I’m going to shoot you, give me the money,”‘ said Sunny Singh, the store’s owner, translating for the clerk who the suspect threatened.
A brief tussle between Slanger and the clerk ensued, which left the would-be-robber standing at the counter, still demanding money.
Suddenly, Thome, who had been watching the entire situation develop lunged at the would-be robber and took him to the ground with a martial arts hold. The vigilante held the suspect on the ground until police arrived to make an arrest.
“It’s kind of my hometown. I live right next to the place, you know, I’m in there everyday. I think if it was the other way around, if I worked there and the guy at the register was there, he would have done the same thing,” said Thome, who’s also an Army veteran who did a tour of duty in Iraq.
