Pizza Robbery Attempt Foiled

It was a pretty quiet night until about 12:30 when Mike told me I was next up for a delivery to 805 Longson. This is literally just about 3 blocks from our store, a very quiet and safe neighborhood. I wouldn’t have had a 2nd thought, except for this newspaper article http://www.chroniclet.com/2008/10/27/pizza-deliverer-robbed-car-stolen_122/ from 3 weeks ago.

A Dominos pizza driver was robbed at 12:30 on a Saturday night on a fake order to a vacant house on the same block. A man was sitting on the porch and pulled a knife, stealing the food, some cash, and the guys car!

What I didn’t remember until I reread the article just now is that the Dominos driver had 2 pizzas and 2 subs. My order was also for 2 pizzas and 2 sandwiches.

Anyways, I immediately became cautious and called back the phone number the customer had given. This has always been our policy on new addresses after dark for the 4.5 years I have worked here, but it rarely happens. Anyways, the people that answerred the phone said that no, they did not order pizza.

My next call was to the Elyria Police Department. The dispatcher was not aware of the Dominos robbery and I’m not sure if she believed me or not, but she said to go to the address and call back and they would send an officer over.

My third call was to Dominos. The person I talked to thought that 805 Longson might indeed be the exact address from their robbery but he was not positive.

Not wanting to wait at the house, I called the Police again when I was ready to leave. Also, Manager Nick rode along with me. As we approached, we saw 2 people dressed in dark clothing, waiting in a vacant field behind a nearby school. We drove past the house and confirmed that it was totally dark with no cars in the driveway.

I didn’t stop but kept driving through the neighborhood until we saw the police pull onto the street. By then, 1 of the guys from the vacant field was sitting on the front step of the house. He got up and ran around behind the house and through some yards when he saw the police. An officer pursued him but he got away.

Nick and I pointed out the other person over in the dark. It was a drunk woman, and she took offense to being called “another guy”. She said she was a girl and walked towards us. The officer asked where she lived, she gave an address, and he told her to go there.

We waited around for about 5-10 minutes until the officers said we should go back. They did end up coming up to our store again after we closed to interview us, but as it was dark and the bad guys were dressed in dark hoodies, we really couldn’t give a very good description.

I’m glad I’m safe … any other driver we had would have gotten robbed. I’m bummed that the police didn’t catch the guy though.

its all too easy not to do new customer call backs - we had a similar one on saturday night, a large order - sounded odd - we often tell customers we will call them back to verify the order - in this case they said fine but the telephone number they gave was not correct so we made a note and if they called back we could explain why we didn’t deliver.

Its stories like yours that really emphasise the need to keep on with the basics - new customer call backs being one of them. We need to keep reminding all drivers and managers of this regularly.

I’m glad your safe, I wish all of my drivers had the sense that you apparently do.
Had the police been a little more pro-active they might have busted the guys and maybe even got a line on where the Domino’s dudes car was.

Rick

funny how when the police order from me they’re always there on time but when I call them for an issue there’s never anyone free for an hour!

You giving them a substantial discount?

I get what you are saying, but it is their job after all! I used to have a sports bar and they pretty much always wound up getting there after the fact. I happened to be very good to them as well. It is a tough job, one that I would not want, but there is room for improvement. I honestly believe that in my area it is more of a budget thing, and that there are just too few cops on the streets.

yep 50% off for collection. Every time they order they are there on the dot. But when we have trouble - thats a whole different issue. Its a toguh job - one I certainly wouldn’t want to do but I often wonder what really happens!

Our sherriff’s department normally takes care of us pretty well if it is a serious matter, twice responding in a matter of a couple of minutes. Several weeks ago though we had a driver robbed in set up similar to the one described above except house was well lit up and thugs were inside. Me and my entire crew were out there supporting the driver before the cops showed up. The road was in a new neighborhood and was not completed yet so they were on one portion of the road looking for us and we were a quarter mile away. The officer had to call us for directions. When they did arive though they had five or six cars, a canine unit and 2 tracking dogs.
Punks got away that night but a smart detective caught them with our help two days later.
We recently had a huge growth spurt in this area. I had a good relationship with the old resident deputy out here. A couple of times when he had a call in one of the new neighborhoods he was not not familiar with, he called us up and confirm that dispatch was sending him to the right area. I don’t know how exactly their maps get updated but the system definately needs improvement.

Rick G