WKYC.com is reporting that a Brinks security guard was robbed in the food court at Prime Outlets Mall in Lodi while loading an ATM Machine.

Prime Outlets Malls are posted with “no-guns” signs (in Ohio only), not just on the buildings, but in parking lots as well. Mall owners have asserted that these signs make their patrons and leasees safer, but since the postings Prime Outlets has made news for circulating composite drawings after it was believed the “Retail Rapist”, who had already targeted the Jeffersonville location before OhioCCW was law, was reportedly spotted at the mall again by several other store owners. And now there is this:

Outlet malls are known for their great bargains, but a Brinks security guard got a whole lot more than he bargained for Friday when he stopped at a local outlet mall.

It was just before two in the afternoon when the Brinks security truck stopped at the Prime Outlets in Lodi along I-71 in Medina County.

The guards stepped inside the food court to fill up the ATM when someone dressed in a Brinks’ security uniform attacked them.
A mall employee quickly dialed 9-1-1.

They quickly set-up surveillance at the mall’s exits and that’s when Deputy Dan Kohler and his partner Casey noticed two men in a white car who were acting differently.

“Ninety-five percent of the people driving by - they hear my dog barking - they all wanted to look at the dog,” Deputy Kohler explained. “A lot of people were slowing down, motioning for me to pull out … a lot of people are waving 'hi' to the police dog. These two just kept looking straight. They had that look like they’d never even saw me parking three feet off the roadway.”

Deputy Kohler pulled the men over and within minute he knew he had his suspects.

“I did a quick search through the vehicle for guns, popped the trunk and as soon as I popped the trunk, there was a Brinks’ security uniform in there,” he said. “One of our detectives took them back to the outlet mall and they were identified as the ones who did the robbery.”

When OFCC began investigating Prime Outlets’ policy a year ago, calls were referred to Peggy Wimberley, regional Vice President for "the whole west region" according to the Lodi management offices. We spoke with her on June 1, 2004. Wimberley reiterated that Prime Outlets "doesn't want anyone" on their property with a firearm. We asked if they really meant anyone, and they made it clear that the company doesn't even let their own security guards carry firearms.

In a separate incident, an OFCC supporter has submitted the following OhioCCW News about another "no-guns" robbery:

OFCC reported reported in March that a local bank had been robbed.

Lawrence Federal Savings Bank in South Point, Ohio was robbed at gunpoint on Thursday March 18, 2005. What the newspaper fails to mention that this bank and all of its branches post discriminatory "No Guns" signs.

Since then, Oak Hill Banks have purchased Lawrence Federal Savings Bank and taken is parent name.

Deja vu?

Friday, June 3, 2005, the bank was robbed again at gunpoint. The bank still has the "No Guns" signs posted.

This is the third robbery in a small rural community in a county of only about 50,000 residents at the same bank branch in just a year.

The Buffalo (NY) News is reporting that robberies and assaults are prompting pizza workers to carry guns, and to consider unionizing so that they can better bargain against employers who would deny them their right to self-defense

From the story:

Three robbers ambushed one man at the back door of a West Side house, kicking him in the head and sending him to the hospital.

Another man was slammed into a wall on Laird Street and threatened up close with a large combat knife.

Still another stared down the barrel of a gun and watched his car being stolen, leaving him abandoned on Domedion Street on a frigid February evening.

These victims weren't looking for trouble.

They just wanted to deliver some hot pizzas.

All three men were on the job - which the federal government describes as one of the most dangerous professions in America: delivering pizzas.

Pizza delivery workers typically work for minimum wage and tips, peddling pizzas worth 10 or 15 bucks.

But these deliverymen say they might as well have targets painted on their backs.

As OFCC has previously reported, a Tennessee organization is now pushing for unionizing pizza delivery drivers. And while it's making news in Buffalo, New York, a search of Ohio media online shows no mention of the pending vote to unionize Mansfield, OH pizza workers who are concerned about their right to protect themselves when making deliveries.

Again, from the story:

The Association of Pizza Delivery Drivers could welcome its first unionized pizza store in the country on Monday when Domino's Pizza drivers in Mansfield, Ohio, hold a union election.

Jeff Callahan, the president of the association, hopes the Ohio events set a precedent. Although the Mansfield group cites reimbursement rates, wages and benefits as reasons for unionizing, the APDD puts safety at the top of its list.

"Delivery drivers enjoy the fifth most dangerous occupation in the U.S.," the group says. "This in and of itself is the only reason that we need what we are doing."

The union said nine drivers were murdered last year across the country. Of 414 robberies it analyzed, criminals wielded a gun 63 percent of the time and money was successfully taken 77 percent of the time. A third of the delivery workers were injured during a robbery.

The risk associated with the job is the nature of the business, some say. Others, though, are fighting back. They're carrying weapons or fighting their attackers.

That's what happened April 20 in Niagara Falls, when a pizza deliveryman shot a teenager who tried to rob him with a fake handgun. The incident in a Pierce Avenue alley left 16-year-old Anthony Sheard dead of a gunshot to the head.

The 54-year-old deliveryman for Mr. Ventry's Pizza is in counseling to help him deal with the incident. The deliveryman, who has not been named by police for fear of retaliation, was licensed to carry a concealed gun and did so because he was robbed three years ago.

Click here to read the full story in the Buffalo (NY) News.

By John R. Lott, Jr.
New York Post
June 3, 2005

When the federal assault- weapons ban expired last September, its fans claimed that gun crimes and police killings would surge. Sarah Brady, one of the nation's leading gun-control advocates, warned, "Our streets are going to be filled with AK-47s and Uzis."

Well, over eight months have gone by and the only casualty has been gun-controllers' credibility. Letting the law expire only showed its uselessness.

Yet, while this lesson has been learned in the rest of the country — Illinois' Democrat-controlled state Assembly last week defeated both a proposed assault weapons and 50-caliber gun bans — New York's Legislature was going its own way. The Assembly last month passed new assault-weapon and 50-caliber bans by almost two-to-one margins — and some Republican state senators (such as Queens' Frank Padavan) are signing on, too.

The irrelevance of the assault-weapons bans to crime rates was to be expected. Not a single published academic study has ever shown that these bans have reduced any type of violent crime.

Even research funded by the Justice Department in the Clinton years found only that these bans' effect on gun violence "has been uncertain." And when those same authors released their updated report last August, looking at crime data up through 2000 — the first six full years of the federal law — they stated, "We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence."

Click here to read the entire op-ed.