Suspect in Thwarted Armed Robbery Reportedly Considering Lawsuit Against Civilian Hero
Only in hyper-litigious America would someone caught red-handed in the commission of an apparent armed robbery have the gall to consider a lawsuit against the civilian hero who courageously thwarted that robbery.
The San Francisco Chronicle has posted dramatic security-camera video from July that seems to show 30-year-old suspect Ryan Michael Flores demanding that counter staff at a Fresno, California, Starbucks fill a bag with cash from the register as he menaces them with both a gun and sizeable knife.
Incredibly, reports the Chronicle, the man credited with stopping the robbery “might now be sued” by Flores over wounds Flores suffered when the man forcefully intervened.
Cregg Jerri, 58, was just another Starbucks customer minding his own business before the robbery began, but then he quickly acted as few would and has since been called “a hero” by Fresno Police.
Nonetheless, even as Flores faces charges of second-degree robbery and assault with a deadly weapon while awaiting trial in the Fresno County Jail, his plainly failed parents — call them enablers, perhaps — seem to see their ne’er do well son as a victim and favor litigation against Jerri.
Interviewed by KSEE-TV, Flores’s mother described Good Samaritan Jerri’s actions as “excessive force” and said her son, who was stabbed many times with his own knife during the extended struggle, planned to file a lawsuit. “[I]t doesn’t take that many stab wounds to get somebody to succumb to you,” she said, even though her son in fact managed eventually to escape Jerri’s grasp and flee the Starbucks before being apprehended by police later.
Flores’s delusional father told the Fresno Bee that he believes the judge who presided over his son’s preliminary hearing in August supported the view that Jerri used too much force in stopping the crime because the judge advised Jerri to “get a lawyer.” Others present at that hearing more rationally believe the judge merely wanted to be sure Jerri’s rights will be protected.
