Fast-Acting Store Clerk Subdues Armed Robber

A convenience-store clerk is being hailed as a hero for rushing an armed robber and subduing him until police arrived.

Rachel Blevins, 20, knocked the man over and subdued him by grabbing his testicles and holding on until police arrived at the Mountain Mart Exxon store.

She said she felt she had no choice after the robber shot one of her co-workers in the arm.

“I can’t believe he would kill us over gas,” Blevins told the Lewiston Morning Tribune on Tuesday.

Store clerks are usually advised not to resist robbers - but this case was different, said Lt. Tom Lee of the Lewiston Police Department.

“She was able to react and react very correctly in these circumstances,” Lee said.

The confrontation occurred as Blevins prepared to close the store around 9:30 p.m. Monday. A man identified by police as Arlen Duane Sharrai, 50, of Payette, put $50 worth of gasoline in his truck and then came into the store to say he would not pay for it, Blevins said.

Blevins told him he did not have to pay. She had been trained by her employers to cooperate with robbers - and she had already spotted the shotgun under the man’s coat.

The man then asked for money from the cash register and cigarettes. Blevins put the items in a bag.

Instead of leaving, the man then ordered Blevins, off-duty co-worker Tom Ball, 20, and his girlfriend, Nicole Holmes, 17, into a storage area behind the cash register.

He ordered Blevins to tape Ball’s hands and feet. She said she complied and was starting to tape Holmes’ hands when the man fired the gun, wounding Ball in the arm.

Then he cracked open the shotgun to insert another shell. Propelled by anger, fear and adrenaline, Blevins said she rushed her attacker, knocking him over the counter and into displays of cigarettes and candy.

Blevins, 5-foot-7 and 140 pounds, was more than a match for her 6-foot-1, 160-pound assailant.

She grabbed the shotgun off the floor and threw it to Holmes. Ball managed to break free and call 911.

The robber tried to bite her and grabbed her necklace, Blevins said. But she punched him in the mouth and got her arm around his neck with his Adams apple in the crook of her arm, she said. With her other hand, she grabbed his testicles - and that is how police found her several minutes later.

Blevins suffered a black eye and bruises. Ball, shot in the lower left arm, was in fair condition.

Sharrai, charged Tuesday with attempted murder and robbery, was being held on $250,000 bond in Nez Perce County Jail here.