UPDATED 9/14, 11:10 a.m. ET: Araceli Sotelo spoke to TMZ, saying she fears for her safety since the armed robber at Subway took her purse, which contains her ID and address.
“What could happen to me if this guy’s just still out like, waiting for me? You know, he hasn’t been caught yet, what if he’s looking for me? He knows where I live, he has all my belongings. I’m personally, I’m really scared,” she said.
She also spoke about being suspended from her job, saying, “I’ve been reaching out to my manager and the owner of the company, and neither one of them have reached out to me.”
A Subway spokesperson gave a statement to TMZ that did not touch on Sotelo’s suspension: “We are deeply concerned about the recent incident at a franchised location in Rockford, Illinois. The restaurant owner and management are fully cooperating with the police investigation, and we request patience until that process is complete.”
See original story below.
A Subway worker has been suspended after defending herself during an attempted robbery, WTVO reports.
The incident took place on Sept. 5 at a Subway location in Rockford, Illinois. Araceli Sotelo was working alone when a man walked in, flashed a gun at her, and demanded access to the money in the store’s cash register.
“He kind of just showed me his gun, and I was like freaking out like, ‘Whoa, you can’t do that, please leave,’” Sotelo told WTVO. “He said, ‘Give me all the money’ and I said, ‘I do not have any money, like, I do not have any money.’ He was just like, ‘Give me everything before I hurt you.’”
The gunman tried to grab Sotelo’s purse, at which point she decided to fight back.
“He was smaller than me, so I have that advantage,” she explained. “He dropped [the gun] trying to hold onto my purse, and I end up pulling his sweatshirt off him and I was like ‘Show your face, show your face, you are on camera.’”
Sotelo continued, “He was like ‘Here you can have your purse back just give me back my stuff.’ He wanted me to give him back his gun and his clothes. I just hit him on the head with it, that is what he was doing to me.”
After footage of the encounter went viral, Sotelo was suspended from her job.
“I get a call yesterday it was like, ‘If every one of these videos are not taken offline you will be suspended,’ and then I texted them and I’m like ‘How long am I suspended for?’ They said till everything is removed online,” Sotelo revealed. “They did not want anyone to know, they wanted to be private that it happened to me and that I fought back, but I think they did that because they do not want corporate to know.”
