‘Save a life, lose your job’ might be a suitable slogan for the Circle K franchise after it fired a store’s clerks earlier this week because he used a gun to protect himself during an attempted armed robbery.
Johnny Jarriel, Jr., assistant manager at the local Circle K convenience store in Douglas County, Ga., was on the job last Saturday when an armed robber burst into the store demanding money and threatening to kill him and everyone in the store, Atlanta’s WXIA-TV reported.
“I can’t really describe all the expletive words he used, but basically ‘give me the money’ or he was gonna kill me and he was very specific about, you know, what he was gonna do to me,” Jarriel told WXIA-TV.
After directing the suspect to the store’s safe, Jarriel pulled his concealed firearm out of from his pants pocket and began firing several rounds causing the suspect to flee the scene.
According to the Georgia Daily News, Jarriel said he had a state permit and was licensed to carry a concealed weapon. Furthermore, the former clerk claimed his manager was well aware he carried his gun at work and had not complained about it prior to the attempted robbery.
“Everybody knew that I carried a weapon and I’d been here for three and a half years and they knew from day one that I had the gun,” Jarriel said.
Nonetheless, Circle K later chose to fire Jarriel, citing “possession/use of a weapon on company property” as grounds for his termination.
Despite now being unemployed, Jarriel believed he had the constitutional right to defend himself and the three bystanders who were at the store.
“I would not change a thing; I would change nothing; nothing would change,” Jarriel said.
