Video: Cashier swats robber's gun away, chases him with hammer!
BURKE COUNTY, Ga. — If someone put a gun in your face, how would you react? Bhumika Patel's reacion might surprise you!
"Her first thought was just to grab that cash drawer and start beating him with it, and just push the gun away," Karen Simpson, a customer, told WRDW.
Patel scared the robber away with only her hands and, eventually, a hammer.
"I think it startled the crap out of him. I think that was the last thing he expected," Simpson said.
Patel was working at the store alone Wednesday when a man wearing a hoodie walked in and went over to get a Mountain Dew. Patel says she could tell by his body language on the 16 surveillance cameras that something didn't seem right with him.
When he walked up to the counter and demanded Patel give him the money in the register, she barely hesitated. In her split-second choice between fight or flight, Patel chose to attack.
Patel said, "I say 'No, I can't.' He say, 'I shoot you!' I say 'Go ahead. If you want to shoot me, shoot me.'"
But, the man pointing the gun right at Patel never got the chance.
"He just try to face off like this gun and I just slap it like that."
Then, Patel got her hands on a hammer. "After I pick my hammer and try to reach out, he just fall down and run out."
Surveillance video shows her chasing him outside of the store -- hammer still in her hand. Besides losing his shoes, the robber wasn't injured. But, neither was Patel.
"I just a little bit of scratch here, three nails lose. That's it."
Authorities say the suspect accused of trying to rob the store wasn't later taken into custody. The 17-year-old is charged with attempted armed robbery, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during commission of a crime.
