Store employee uses barcode scanner to defeat knife-wielding robber

Being a big city, Osaka falls victim to criminal activity more frequently than the rest of the sleepy countryside surrounding it. But still, the criminals they do have in this “big bad” city, seem to be lacking in… experience? Guts? Commitment?

Back in May we saw the convenience store robber who got outsmarted by a clerk after a series of unfortunate decisions on his part. The other day, another wannabe convenience store robber started his raid out well, but gave up pretty easily after some quick thinking and scolding by the store attendant.

Let me set the scene: It’s four in the morning on November 25 in a dead silent Family Mart convenience store in Kitakawahori-cho of the Tennoji Ward. Only one clerk, a 41-year-old man, shuffles silently about the store. A young man (teens to twenties) of medium build, but a little on the short side at 150-160cm (about 5ft), comes in and asks for a pack of cigarettes.

According to the clerk’s statement, while he was behind the register scanning the barcode on the cigarette pack, the customer pulled out a knife, probably a sharp kitchen knife of some kind, and a bag. The customer-turn-robber threatened the clerk with the knife and demanded the money from the register be emptied into the bag. (I’d say the robber was doing a pretty good job so far, at least he was prepared.)

I don’t know if it was a fatherly instinct to scold the young fella (being twice the robber’s age) or he’s just the coolest convenience store clerk in the region, but he used the barcode scanner, which he was already holding, to simply knock the knife out of the unsuspecting robber’s hand, and yelled, “Stop it! Get out of here!” Obediently, the unsuccessful robber did as he was told. He grabbed his knife (and nothing else) and hightailed it out of the store.