Sherman Store Clerk Foils Attempted Robbery - KTEN.com - No One Gets You Closer

SHERMAN, TX -- A store clerk stopped an attempted robbery, scaring intruders away with a baseball bat, and customers are upset that someone would target the store.

Customers say it depends on the situation, but they would not want to put themselves in harm's way, but the tough but soft-spoken clerk from Mali says that something about the robbers did not add up.

Clerk Abraham Sogoba says it was around 10 p.m. on Thursday when two would-be thieves walked into the store. "Two men just come in and when I lift my head, he brought the gun and said give me the money," says Sogoba.

Suddenly one of them was trying to get around behind the counter to take the money himself. "I just hit the floor like that," says Sogoba, showing how he struck the floor with a baseball bat.

"That's a pretty brave man right there, need a little more than a bat back there," says customer Jeff Armstrong.

"Somebody tries to rob you you gotta do something," says one passerby.

Sogoba says at one point one man referred to the other by name, and that the gun appeared to be fake. "The point of the gun looked like the real gun, but the back was plastic and the other part of the pistol was plastic," says Sogoba.

"You never know if it's real or what it is, you never know what people got going on in their lives," says Shannah Love.

Sogoba says this all happened around closing time, and there was a customer in the store, but he says when he saw the customer making a move to help, he didn't want him to get involved.

"I tried to tell him like that, back up and he understood," says Sogoba, showing how he nodded to the customer. "He was trying to take a bottle of soda and he was about to hit him with the bottle of soda."

Some customers say they are not sure if they would have done what Sogoba did, and they were not happy about what he went through.

"It shouldn't happen they just got here gotta let em feel comfortable, you know don't want this store shutting down have been here for years, so  it's just sad that it happened," says customer Justin Brown.

"Every job has its own risk, so when you work you just work, only God can protect you," says Sogoba.

Sogoba says police came and dusted for fingerprints, and the case is under investigation as an aggravated robbery. Luckily, no one was hurt, and the store was back open on Friday.