STOW, Ohio — Kendrick Watson says he did everything right on the worst night of his six years at Circle K, and it still cost him his job. Watson, 41, of Stow, was working the night shift at the Circle K at 750 Steels Corner Road on Nov. 2 when a robbery crew rammed the storefront with a stolen minivan and rushed the door; Watson fired seven shots at the suspects and drove them off, Stow police said in a news release reported by the Akron Beacon Journal. Police say he will not be charged — but Watson told the Akron Beacon Journal he was fired over the incident.
The attack began at about 3:30 a.m. Watson told the Akron Beacon Journal he was sitting behind the cash register when he heard glass breaking; he first thought a drunk person had caused it, but a second crash told him something was badly wrong. The robbers rammed the front of the Circle K multiple times with one of the minivans, destroying the glass entryway and dislodging the ATM inside the store, Stow police said, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.
When four masked men tried to rush into the store, Watson opened fire. “I didn’t feel like my life was in danger until I saw them rushing the store,” Watson told the Akron Beacon Journal. He fired seven times, Stow police said, and the shots struck a gas pump, one of the stolen minivans used in the attempted robbery and a post supporting the canopy over the pumps. It is unknown whether any of the robbers were injured, police said in the release reported by the Akron Beacon Journal. “I wanted to protect myself, coworkers and the store. After I fired shots, they ran away,” Watson told the Akron Beacon Journal.
The crew fled in stages. The suspects abandoned the white minivan they had used to ram the storefront and escaped in a second, brown minivan; both vans had been reported stolen from Cleveland, according to the Akron Beacon Journal’s reporting of the police release. Stow police arrested one suspect who fled on foot west near the intersection of Steels Corners Road and Wyoga Lake Boulevard in Cuyahoga Falls, the release said.
That suspect, a 25-year-old Cleveland man, was booked into the Stow City Jail, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. He was arraigned in Stow Municipal Court, where his bond was set at $100,000 cash; he is being held at the Summit County Jail and was charged with robbery, receiving stolen property and vandalism, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. At least three other suspects escaped in the second stolen minivan, and police have been working to locate that vehicle — a brown 1997 Chrysler Town & Country, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.
For Watson, the legal question closed quickly. Stow police took his gun for the investigation and returned it, Watson told the Akron Beacon Journal, and Stow police Capt. Bryan Snavely confirmed to the newspaper that Watson will not be charged. “They (Stow police) were very nice, respectful and did their job. They understood the situation,” Watson told the Akron Beacon Journal. The newspaper’s report walked through Ohio’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, under which a person may act in self-defense or defense of another when someone who is not allowed on the property is forcefully trying to enter.
The employment question went the other way. Watson told the Akron Beacon Journal his manager contacted him later that same day and told him not to come into work, and that he was ultimately fired. “I’ve tried to be the best employee I could be, even worked 33 days straight one time. I was just disappointed in the way they handled it. I took the actions I did to protect the lives of everyone,” Watson told the Akron Beacon Journal.
Circle K has not explained its decision publicly. A person answering the phone at Circle K headquarters in Tempe, Arizona, told the Akron Beacon Journal that no one was available for comment on the incident. Watson, meanwhile, has started a GoFundMe to help cover bills and other expenses while he looks for another job, according to the Akron Beacon Journal.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on. Confirmed, through Stow police as reported by the Akron Beacon Journal: the time, place and method of the attack; that Watson fired seven shots and will not be charged; that one suspect is in custody on robbery, receiving stolen property and vandalism charges with a $100,000 cash bond; and that at least three suspects escaped. Still unknown: whether any fleeing suspect was wounded, where the brown minivan is, whether more arrests are coming, and whether Circle K will say anything at all about why a six-year employee lost his job for an act police say was lawful self-defense.
The case sits inside a wider Northeast Ohio public-safety picture our readers have been following, including the identification of 18-year-old Joshua Davis in a fatal Maple Heights apartment shooting and Newburgh Heights’ police staffing crisis, where the force has dropped to five patrol officers.
What happens next runs on two tracks. In court, the arrested suspect’s case moves forward from his Stow Municipal Court arraignment and $100,000 bond. On the street, Stow police are still looking for the remaining suspects and the brown Town & Country — and Watson is looking for work, six years of night shifts ending with the night he says he protected his store.
Photo: Stow photographer, CC BY-SA