Last night saw an astonishing end to a terrifying encounter in a shop in Slavonia. Under the cover of darkness and with a hood and mask covering his face, a young man entered the shop, pointed a gun at the lady working there and demanded to be given the store’s takings. But, the Slavonski Brod armed robber left empty-handed. The shopworker simply refused to give in to the threat.
Nobody knows for sure what they would themselves do under such circumstances. And, perhaps that’s also true of Snježana Iličić, the shopworker who faced the Slavonski Brod armed robber. But, when a confrontation most would find terrifying visited her, she remarkably kept her cool. “I won’t,” she said to the Slavonski Brod armed robber, “I don’t give money.”
The incident was caught on the shop’s CCTV and broadcast alongside an interview with Snježana, her husband and members of the Slavonski Brod community on Croatian TV channel RTL.
“I looked him in the eye and saw he was holding a gun and (I asked him) ‘Why?’ Snježana told RTL’s reporter. To her question, the Slavonski Brod armed robber replied, “Get the money out! This is no joke.”
“I said no”, Snježana recounts. The Slavonski Brod armed robber repeated his demand, “I told you to take the money out.”
“I won’t,” she told the gun-toting man. “I simply did (just) that. I don’t know… at that moment, that’s (just) how I felt. And that’s how it turned out.”
In the CCTV footage, you can see the Slavonski Brod armed robber looking confused at the brave and barefaced shopworker’s response. Eventually, he relents, gives up and simply walks back out of the store.
Snježana told RTL she had not felt a shred of fear during the encounter. It wasn’t until the attempted armed robber had left the store that she was overcome by the stress and shock of the incident. She called the police and then her boss. Snježana is not the shop owner, she only works there. Everyone in Snježana’s family is proud of her, as are members of the local community who were interviewed later in the news item. The shop, which is in Bukovlje, Slavonski Brod is open as usual again today, but the owner has given Snježana time off for a well-deserved holiday.
The Slavonski Brod armed robber was caught by police not long after Snježana called them. He was found to be 22-years-old and the media reports that he has no previous convictions for anything similar. He faces up to 12 years in prison, depending on the details of the weapon he was brandishing.
