YORK, Pa. – Elena Santiago says she fired her homework at a Rite Aid in York, Pennsylvania, after protecting he hemselves from a visitor who reacted violently when she asked her to leave the store for refusing to wear a mask.
Before the incident, Santiago this job.
Clock manager at Rite Aid Pharmacy right next to downtown York Square, I enjoyed talking to normal customers, other people and friends. The store functions as the medium of the center’s network, more like a convenience store than as a corporate chain.
For example, the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when toilet paper and hand sanitist were scarce, normal consumers were asked for their phone numbers and called when shipments arrived.
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On Wednesday morning he woke up for the first time in four and a half years of his work.
All when a young man dressed in a skateboard walked into the store at approximately 12:28 p. m. M. September 3rd, no mask.
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When the boy walked into the store, Santiago said she asked her if she had a mask, the boy ignored her and she asked again. The store helps keep a mask suitable for consumers who don’t have a mask and she showed up to give it to her. People who enter the store must use one through the governor’s order.
The man, who was near the sandwich aisle, responded rudely and said he did want to wear a mask.
She said, “If you don’t respect me, I’m going to have to ask you out of the store. “
The guy refused to leave and she told him he was going to call the police.
The guy replied that if she was the police, according to Santiago, he’d physically attack her.
Santiago had had problems with rude consumers before, and she said more than not that they would leave the store when asked to do so and, in some cases, would return a day or two later to apologize.
A few months ago, however, the store had a challenge with young people and adults stealing and looting the store and throwing products at staff, he said. She asked her district manager for a security guard, knowing the chain was leaving them at the points of sale. That had challenges. She said the district manager rejected her application.
When it became clear that the guy wasn’t leaving, Santiago said he asked the cashier to teleport her comrades to help her.
The guy turned to her and pushed her towards the mag’s shelf. She hit her forehead and ended up bruising on her legs.
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Then, he said, the guy started “demolishing the store,” knocking down the counter presentations and throwing the money sign on the floor.
Santiago the police, and when the boy heard her, he turned to her.
At that moment, Santiago pulled his knife and pepper spray out of his pocket. She lives in a room downtown and carried the knife and pepper spray to protect herself as she walked to the paintings before dawn and infrequently left pictures after dark. (The knife was in his locker in paintings, he said, but as he approached the end of his shift, he had kept it in his pocket so as not to touch it. )
She pointed her knife at him and went to use his pepper spray, he said, but since it was the first time he used it, he ended up spraying himself.
The guy then left the store, he said, breaking the window of the two windows with his skateboard from the outside sidewalk.
The episode captured through a surveillance camera.
Police arrived about 30 minutes after the guy left and took a report, he said. His son, one of his two young adult sons living in the city, the only circle of relatives he has in York, came here to his aid and, along with some of his companions, toured the town center in search of the guy, but they didn’t see him.
Santiago went back to his room. She trembed, she said, repeating the episode over and over in her head.
The next morning, he repainted at 7 a. m. to begin his turn.
She said a human resources user called from Camp Hill and asked her how he was doing. He asked if he had gone to the hospital, he said. She said she didn’t. ” I knew a doctor would tell me to quit my job, and I didn’t need it,” he says. I have to work. “
The human manager told him to take off on Saturdays and Sundays, with pay, and to return after the Labor Day holiday.
She finished her shift at the pharmacy on Tuesday at noon and won a phone call from Human Resources to tell her she had been fired from her $11-an-hour job, Santiago said.
He stated that the human resources manager had told him that, on the one hand, the store was not intended to apply the mask requirement imposed through the government; on the other hand, he had violated corporate policy by having a gun at work, his pocket knife.
The human resources manager asked if he had to say.
“I was speechless, ” said Santiago, “I thought, at any rate, they would write to me. I didn’t expect to get fired. “
He said it had been written before.
He calmed down, he said, and asked for a moment of opportunity. Not the answer.
Then, at the age of 40, she discovered herself outside the paintings. Before moving to Rite Aid, he painted in downtown McDonald’s, and even after starting at the pharmacy, he continued to paint in the third trimester in the fast food franchise until he became too much.
“I don’t understand, ” he said. I got fired for protecting me. I’m being punished for protecting me. I think the way he was treated is unfair.
“What did you intend to do, let him hit me back or protect me?”
Rite Aid spokesman Chris Savarese said the company made no comment on staff issues and referred questions about the episode to York Police. York City police showed the incident and said he was under investigation.
Meanwhile, Santiago implemented unemployment.
“Now, ” he said, “I have to find work.
Follow Mike Argento on Twitter: @fnmikeargento