Talk about cleaning up crime.
A convenience store employee used a mop to take down two shoplifters, and the wild incident was caught on surveillance camera.
Teresa Fowler works at Spinx on W.O. Ezell Boulevard in Spartanburg. Early Wednesday morning, she was mopping the floor when two men walked into the store. Video shows the men walking to the beer cooler and taking three cases and three 18-packs of beer. Fowler says when the men started walking toward the door without paying, she yelled at them to stop.
"One of them just turned and laughed at me, and that made me kind of mad!" says Fowler.
That's when she decided to turn her cleaning instrument into a club and go after them. She say she whacked the laughing shoplifter on the side of the head as he walked through the door. Surveillance video shows the man falling to the sidewalk outside the store then getting up and scrambling to a truck. Fowler then went after the other shoplifter, but he grabbed the mop handle and shoved her to the ground.
"It didn't hurt me because I have a lot of padding!" laughs Fowler, who has worked for Spinx for six years.
Video shows Fowler jumping up and going after the thief again. She whacks him a couple of times in the head and upper body, and then grabs the beer that he had put on the ground and walks away with it. But the persistent thief came after her. Video does not show it because the two walk off screen, but Fowler says the man pulled a knife from his coat and threatened her. She says she kept swinging the broom at him until he backed off. She then went inside and called 911. Meanwhile, the thief reclaimed the beer, got in the truck, and took off.
Witnesses managed to get the tag number of the dark-colored Dodge Ram. Spartanburg Public Safety says the tag matches that of a Seneca man who owns a Dodge Ram. But there's a problem: the man is white and the two shoplifting suspects are black. And the truck has not been reported stolen. Public Safety is trying to find the man to speak with him. Meanwhile, if you recognize the men in the surveillance video, call Crimestoppers at 58-CRIME.
Click on the video tab above to see the amazing video and Chris Cato's interview with Fowler.
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