ViralHogYou know that moment of panic that crosses your mind when you know you’ve really effed things up. Like waking up and seeing it’s an hour after you’re supposed to be at work…
Times that squeaky bum time by about a hundred… yeah you’re probably not even close.
We’re not in the business of assisting would-be criminals but from the footage shown here shows you may want to check you can’t get locked in the store you’re trying to rob.
Because this is exactly what happened to wannabe great phone shop robber John Bell when he tried to hold up Latino Cellular in Houston, Texas, in April 2017 and came face-to-face with a fast thinking employee.
Watch the moment unfold:
Katrina Leon kept her wits about her when faced with his demand for the till to be opened. ‘No,’ she replied firmly.
She then calmly walked out the shop along with its customers before locking the door behind her.
Katrina told ABC News:
As soon as he entered and he just pointed the gun at at me, and I knew instantly I’m getting robbed again, but this time I didn’t open the cash register.
I just locked him in, because when you lock the door outside, from the inside you can’t open it, so I knew he wasn’t going to be able to open it.
ViralHogWe don’t have guns in the UK, so if I was in her shoes I’d straight up just brick it. ‘Take the £200 float and all the Lebara mobile phone cards you want mate, just don’t ruin the face!’
Back to Houston and the door and windows to the shop are barred, caging Bell like the prison birdie he was soon about to come.
He frantically paces up and down the shop and at one point tries to shoot his way out of there, firing four shots into the lock to no avail, proving Hollywood movie clichés to be exactly what they are.
Even throwing his weight at the door doesn’t budge the thing.
Skip to the end – because no one likes watching empty video content:
As reality dawns Bell drops to his knees, hands clasped, and pleads with people outside the store:
Please! Please! Please!
I’m sorry, please! Help, please!
Police arrive to the scene shortly after what probably felt like an eternity for Bell and arrest him without incident.
Court records show Bell pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and was sentenced to five years in prison.
ViralHogAt the time of the April 2017 robbery Bell was on deferred adjudication for 12 years from a 2015 aggravated robbery charge.
Some smart arses at the time commented that this was just a kid, a victim to a broken monetary system designed by the rich to enslave the poor, and to some extents that’s true. Just think how many people have faced criminal charges for the 2008 global economic collapse or when the Mossack Fonseca papers were leaked and we saw just quite how much money is being siphoned out of the tax system to line the pockets of the already obscenely (some would say criminally) rich.
Crime doesn’t always pay.
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Tim Horner is a sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated with a BA Journalism from University College Falmouth before most his colleagues were born. A previous editor of adult mags, he now enjoys bringing the tone down in the viral news sector.