A lesson for would-be criminals: If you’re robbing a gas station, it’s a good idea to have somebody other than a police officer watching your back.
That's what a Gwinnett County man learned earlier this month when he tried to rob the Quick Trip station on Scenic Highway in Snellville, police told Channel 2 Action News.
Even more bizarre, a few minutes earlier, the man had asked the police officer for a ride – the officer declined – and a plainly marked Snellville Police Department pick-up truck was parked outside.
“Yo! Give me all the money in the (expletive) register! Right now!” Stephen Frankie Daniel, 21, can be heard saying to the clerk in a surveillance video.
Unknown to Daniel, Snellville police Lt. B.W. Brown had just walked up behind him. The officer waited, watching and listening, as the clerk stuffed cash into a paper bag and handed it to the bandit.
Daniel had to wonder why the clerk was smiling.
“The manager was laughing at the time he was putting the money in the bag because he was looking at me over the guy who was robbing him,” Brown told Channel 2.
As soon as Daniel turned around, Brown said, “I got a hold of him by the shoulder and placed him under arrest for robbery.”
“Everyone in the store started laughing and you can kind of hear it on tape,” the officer said. “In 34 years, I have never had one happen the way this one did.”
Daniel, who was not armed, was charged with robbery and was being held Friday night at the Gwinnett County Detention Center.
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