Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 8, 1993 TAG: 9312080161
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Both work as managers of Family Dollar stores.
And both say they have been beaten by shoplifters while on the job.
"It makes you scared to come to work," said Linda Brown, who's been assaulted by customers two times during the past several Christmas seasons. "It makes you wonder whether every day until Christmas Eve is going to be like this."
Friday was one of those days.
According to police reports, a man walked into the Williamson Road Northeast store where Linda Brown is assistant manager, lined his pockets with stolen batteries, and punched her several times in the head before fleeing. Tommie M. Gaynor, 39, faces a charge of malicious wounding, police said.
The man who hit her never spoke, she said. "He just automatically hit me. I think it is ridiculous. It's not like I threatened his life. I just wanted my merchandise back."
Police said a clerk, Diana Widner, had seen a man crouch behind a display and stuff batteries into his pockets. When Linda Brown came out of the stockroom with a cart full of merchandise, Widner pointed to the man and told her he was shoplifting.
Brown joined Widner at the cash register, and, as several people stood in line, the man bolted around them and headed for the door.
"Sir, you either have to pay or return my merchandise," Brown recalled telling him.
He then struck her in the throat, knocking her backward; and, as she tried to fend him off, he shoved her into a wall and punched her in the jaw and mouth before going out the door.
Someone jotted down a license plate number when the suspect's car stalled in the parking lot.
Meanwhile, Linda Brown's husband, Richie, was at his job as manager of the Family Dollar Store on 24th Street Northwest. "It didn't surprise me," he said. "I've had cashiers dragged out on the sidewalk and beaten before."
Brown recalled that he himself was beaten and kicked by three men before a customer pulled up in the parking lot and started screaming. On one occasion, he said, angry shoplifters surrounded him with guns and threatened him.
"They said they'd rather see me dead than standing there looking them in the face," he said.
Even though he has arranged for security, the outside of the building occasionally is pelted with bottles while customers and workers are inside, he said.
Brown, who has been a store manager for nine years, said: "What makes me angry is when they go to court, they get a slap on the hand and are told not to do it again.
by CNB