There weren’t many clients in the office that morning which retrospectively was a very good thing. I started off like any other day, an opportunity to catch up on some paperwork. My colleague seated four desks away from me had a young man at her desk. I could hear his voice becoming agitated as I looked up he drew a gun from his bag yelling.
“Give me the fuckin money, it your fault I don’t have food for my kids” he yelled as he waved the gun around.
I froze at the sight of the gun. His head swung around looking at us frozen at our desks.
“What’re you fuckin looking at” he screamed. “Get in the corner, in the corner or I’ll shoot the bitch.”
Heart pounding in my chest I moved the short distance from my desk to the corner.
“Get in the corner” he yelled again. He pointed the gun at my colleagues head. “you get that money into m account”
Several of my colleagues and I huddled in the corner. Wide eyed we stared at each other in horror at the unfolding event. One of them whispered “Should we try to get out the door.” The door was a little further along the wall behind a screen out of the gunman sight.
“Shut the fuck up and you get that money sorted I’m not kidding around here.”
He pulled the trigger on the gun. The sound created a shock wave. My heart was beating so hard. All I seemed to be able to hear was the pounding of my heart. Breathe shuddering through dry lips.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. An Armed Defender had slide quietly through the back door, another two had also entered they were dressed in bullet proof vests and held rifles. The first one made a motion to my colleague nearest the door, she quietly moved around then screen another moved. At this point the gunman also moved turning more towards us pointing his gun.
The armed defender came round the corner with his rifle pointed at the gunman yelling. “Drop the gun, drop the gun now.” The gunman started to swing his gun towards the armed defender and police dog came around the corner from the other side of the office in a grey blur and leapt jaws clamping onto the gunman’s arm. The dog’s weight an momentum pulling the gunman to the floor. As he went down several armed defender converged on the man rifles at the ready. Others assisted staff to their feet and out of the way.
Then a confusing thing happened, the gunman shook my colleague’s hand and spoke the lead armed defender while putting his hand on the dog head. The manager came into the room followed by colleague who had gotten out of the office as they had been out of sight of the gunman.
The manager said “I would like to thank the armed defender squad, Sergeant Smith as our gunman and Prince the very skilled Police dog for taking part in the exercise to give us an idea of what can potentially happen with some of our clients. We will go into the meeting room for a debriefing.
One hour of the workday down and nothing like an ordinary day.
