By John Sprague
We’ve heard it all before. “You should’ve fired a warning shot!” “You should’ve shot him in the leg, you didn’t have to KILL him!” “He was a harmless sweet boy who wouldn’t hurt anyone!” The sob stories from the family members of goblins who were offed by good guys are always so touching. They rationalize that the true victims should’ve acted differently to accommodate their thug loved one. Well, here is a new one . . .
A little back story: on December 26, 2011, Jeremy Atkinson decided that he didn’t get enough Christmas presents and decided to help himself to some unearned income from the local Kroger. Grocery store manager Elijah Elliott, though, decided to play the Grinch. He didn’t take kindly to Atkinson threatening his fellow employees, so he pulled out his own gun and killed the robber.
Now, back to the rationalizing. And let’s throw in a little profiteering just for fun. The family of the late Mr. Atkinson see him as the victim, not the Kroger employees whose lives were put in danger by their thug perfect little angel and they’ve decided to avail themselves of the legal system to compensate them for their loss.
So now they’ve dug up an ambulance chaser to target the one party involved with deep pockets – Kroger. From indystar.com:
According to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday in U.S. District Court, “Kroger failed to supervise its employees and enforce its safety policies including Kroger’s policy that no employees shall carry a firearm while on duty.”
What it really boils down to is this family is suing the grocery store for not allowing their son to rob the place all nice and normal like. After all, they could have strip-searched their employees before their shifts, right? No word on whether Kroger plans to countersue the family for their son breaking their established “do not rob our store” policy.