Suspect's grandma backs fired manager
Suspect's grandma backs fired manager
Teen worker grateful ex-boss hit assailant; man surrenders in case
08:09 AM CDT on Wednesday, October 6, 2004
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
The teenage worker didn't get a chance to thank her supervisor on the night he foiled a robbery at a Long John Silver's restaurant by hitting one of the attackers with a hammer.
By the time she returned to work a few days after the Sept. 18 robbery in Richardson, her boss had been fired. Company officials said he had endangered the employees' lives – including hers – by violating rules that require cooperation with robbers.
"I can understand the company policy saying that he shouldn't have put our lives in jeopardy, but we were already in jeopardy," said the young woman, who asked not to be identified while one of the robbers remains at large. "He did what he had to do, and I'm thankful. There's no way to know what would have happened if he hadn't. I was shocked when they let him go."
Police say two men – one with a mask – burst into the Long John Silver's on Belt Line Road, forced employees to the ground and then led the supervisor to the back of the restaurant. Fearing for his life, the supervisor picked up a hammer and hit the masked man. Both men fled, and the money was recovered. Days later, the manager was fired.
On Tuesday, 21-year-old Raymond Demond Clayborne of Dallas surrendered to Richardson police and was being held at the Richardson jail on suspicion of robbery. His bail was set at $50,000.
"We brought him over there about 3 a.m.," said Charlene Miles, Mr. Clayborne's grandmother, who said she helped raise Mr. Clayborne.
"We saw him on TV; they had him on camera in that robbery," she said. "I know that when the police are after you like that, they take no chances. I didn't want the police coming in here with their guns or getting him on the street. We didn't force him; he wanted to get this off his chest. He was raised in church. It had been eating at him."
She said even she is dismayed over the company's firing of the restaurant supervisor. "I don't think he should have been fired," Ms. Miles said. "I think I would have done that too, if it had been me. That's instinct."
Ms. Miles said the robber who was masked is an acquaintance of her grandson's.
"The boy that got hit, he came by here a day or two later," Ms. Miles said. "He said, 'Boy my head hurts!' He was scared to go to the doctor because he thought they would report him."
Richardson police Sgt. Keith Cannon said officers are searching for the man.
Mr. Clayborne was sentenced to a year's probation after he was caught in July 2003 stealing a television, stereo and cellphone from a Fry's Electronics in Dallas.
Authorities were in the process of revoking his probation when he surrendered Tuesday morning.
"I've done all I could to keep him out of trouble," Ms. Miles said. "He's in the Lord's hands."
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