‘Lose My Life or Lose My Job’: 7-Eleven Clerk Choked By Customer Fired for Shooting Attacker In Store with Her Own Gun
Twenty-five-year-old Stephanie Dilyard was working the night shift at an Oklahoma City 7-Eleven when her worst fears came true. A customer viciously assaulted the convenience store clerk after she refused his counterfeit $100 bill. Fearing for her life, she shot the suspect in the stomach with a gun she kept behind the counter for self-defense. The attacker fled and was later arrested at the hospital. He faces multiple serious charges. Meanwhile, Dilyard is out of a job. Stephanie Dilyard was fired from 7-Eleven for shooting a customer who attacked her. (Photos: GoFundMe, Getty Images) The $80 billion convenience store behemoth justified her firing based on strict company policy that bans self-defense weapons, including mace, at work. The mom of three, who has worked the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift for more than two years, thinks the policy is “not realistic,” and her terrifying experience has sparked an online debate about carrying while on the job. ‘Help, This Part Is Taking Me Out!’: Newsom Fires Back at JD Vance’s Fox News Attack With Nickname So Brutal Even MAGA Didn’t Know How to Respond Events unfolded just before midnight on Thursday, Nov. 13. Kenneth Thompson, 59, allegedly tried to buy burritos, beef sticks, and ice cream with the fake bill, but Dilyard spotted something was amiss right away. That's when he tried to strangle her. “He threatened me, saying he was going to slice my head off, and then that’s when I tried to call the police,” she told local station Fox25 News. “He started throwing things at me. I came behind the counter. I tried to run off, but he grabbed his hands around my neck and pushed me out of the counter space. That’s when I pulled out my gun and I shot him.” According to Oklahoma City police, Dilyard is protected under the Oklahoma self-defense law, but that didn’t prevent a dreaded call from 7-Eleven human resources first thing Monday morning informing her she had lost her job. “This was a situation where I felt like I was put in a corner between choosing my job and my life, and I’m always going to choose my life because there are people that depend on me,” she told the outlet. “I need to be here for my kids.” After he was shot, Thompson called 911 from the intersection of MacArthur Boulevard and Northwest 34th St., about a mile away. He was then taken to a hospital and arrested. According to the outlet, he has been charged with assault and battery, threatening acts of violence, trying to pass a fake bill, and a felony warrant for violating parole. Meanwhile, Dilyard is wondering how to make ends meet with the holidays around the corner. She started a GoFundMe to help with expenses while she looks for a new position. “I never expected for me to be in this situation, but I did what I had to do to go home to my kids,” she wrote in the GoFundMe. “I was a good employee, committed and determined, but in-between a rock and a hard place. I had to make a quick decision — lose my life, or lose my job.”
