Kwik Shop reviews policies following kidnapping

Hutchinson, Kan.-based Kwik Shop  is reviewing its policies in the aftermath of Monday's kidnapping and assault on an employee in Cedar Rapids.

“We're looking into it internally to address any safety concerns that we would uncover here,” said Jeff Parker, president of Kwik Shop. “On an ongoing basis, we conduct training for our associates on security issues. We encourage them to pay close attention to customers and their surroundings in the store at all times.

“After a situation like this, we most definitely will look at what we have in place today and review whether it's something we need to revise.”

Parker said the security cameras in the Kwik Shop store at 1001 First Ave. SW apparently enabled the police to quickly determine what had happened to Amanda Daniel, 19, and mount a search for the clerk and her assailant.

“We are really grateful that the police were able to find her as quick as they did,” he said. “We're trying to get in contact with her family to offer any help and support that we can.”

Kwik Shop is one of five convenience store chains owned by Cincinnati-based Kroger Co. Parker said assaults on Kwik Shop employees are very rare.

“This is a very unusual situation for us,” he said. “When we look at safety for employees or our customers, we take it very seriously.”

Convenience stores don't often schedule female clerks to work graveyard shifts alone because robbers and other criminals think they make easier targets, a security consultant said.

Security video showed Daniel being escorted out of the Kwik-Shop convenience store where she was clerking alone at about 4 a.m. Monday, May 17,  by a white male holding her neck.

Police later apprehended Keith Van Elson Jr., 54, at an apartment where Daniel was found late Monday morning.

The circumstances of the abduction were unusual, according to Chris McGoey, a Los Angeles security consultant and author who has consulted on security plans for 7-Eleven and other retail chains.

McGoey said it's quite common for C-stores to operate with one clerk. In fact, he said, most convenience stores were designed for one-clerk operation, at least until the industry changed to include expanded operations such as restaurants in the past two decades.

Early convenience stores were laid out so that the single clerk could see the entire store and gas pump area, and be seen easily from outside through the window glass.

Having a woman clerk operating  a store alone late at night is far  less common, McGoey said.

“Probably 90 percent of the people who work these shifts are male,” McGoey said.

Why?

”Robbers prefer to rob women over men,” McGoey said. He said studies  support the finding.

McGoey said sexual assault also becomes a much greater likelihood when women work stores alone late at night,  with the highest likelihood for younger and more attractive women.

“Any crime you can possibly imagine has happened in a convenience store,” McGoey said.

A 2009 OSHA report listed “solo work” as one of five risk factors that put late-night retail workers at risk of violence. Among its many recommendations were increasing staffing levels at stores with a history of robbery or assaults, or located in high crime areas.

New Mexico and other states as well as cities have laws requiring more than one employee for convenience stores open overnight. In New Mexico, convenience stores open between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. must either have two workers on duty, have a security guard, or install bulletproof glass and other safety features to limit access to store personnel, according to the OSHA report.

Still, McGoey said, women clerks sometimes are scheduled to work alone late at night for various reasons, and women don't always object.

“Sometimes women work the graveyard shift just because they don't have any other options,” McGoey said.

McGoey also found it extremely unusual that a suspect would take a hostage or abductee back to his own apartment. He said perpetrators in such cases sometimes think their hostage or abductee will come to like them.