TACOMA, Wash. — A Tacoma convince store clerk is on a mission to find the people who beat him after stealing from his shop.
According to police, the assault happened Thursday at 11 p.m. at a 76 station at the intersection of South Hosmer St. and South 84th St.
Through two black eyes, Alan Pendell is on the lookout for the men that left him badly beaten with bruised ribs and a dislocated jaw.
“I want these guys caught, number one, so that they can’t hurt anyone else, because if they’re willing to hurt him over a couple of beers and a couple of words then they’re willing to hurt everybody over everything,” said Angela Pendell, Alan’s wife.
Thursday night Alan Pendell says a man he’d never seen before tried to walk out of the store with beer without paying. When he confronted that man two other guys jumped in and left him badly beaten.
“It makes me angry that these people think it’s okay to go and hurt somebody,” Angela Pendell said.
Alan Pendell has worked as a clerk for more than eight years and in that time he’s heard countless stories of violence against others with his same job.
On Friday, a convenience store clerk in Edmonds was fatally shot. Police are looking for a man who they say jumped on the counter of a 7-Eleven and proceeded to shoot and kill the 64-year-old working the register.
It's enough for Pendell to say enough is enough.
“You got to make a stand – you gotta. It’s me today. Who’s it going to be next week? A lady. It could be anybody,” Pendell said.
Tacoma police are investigating and say there is surveillance video of the incident but are waiting to release it. But Pendell and his wife don’t want to wait – they want anyone with any information to come forward.
“If we let it go, what’s going to happen to the next person?” Angela Pendell said.