Illinois, US: CCTV footage has shown the shocking moment a Subway employee fought off a man who tried to rob her at work.
Araceli Sotelo was doing her regular shift on September 5 when a hooded man with a weapon entered and started asking her to hand over the money.
But Araceli did not give in to his demands and started fighting him as he tried to grab her purse.
And while she managed to take his gun from him, he still had her purse in his hand.
The now-viral video shows how it all unfolded after Araceli shared it on TikTok. It has so far received more than 10 million views.
Surprisingly, Araceli was suspended from her job after the incident.
In an interview with WTVO, she said:
“He kind of just showed me his gun, and I was like freaking out like, ‘Woah you can’t do that please leave.’ [He said], ‘Give me all the money’, and I said ‘I do not have any money, like, I do not have any money.’ That is all I had and he was just like, ‘Give me everything before I hurt you.”
“He was smaller than me, so I have that advantage. I’m bigger than him, so I could at least put my weight on him, push him, or something,” she added.
After the video was shared on the web, Araceli says she received a threatening call to delete it, or face suspension. But she claims she is not responsible for leaking the video.
She recalled:
“I get a call yesterday [September 8] 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. I have no ability to do that.”
Even though she denied sharing the video, she says her employer has been ignoring her.
“They did not want anyone to know,” she said. “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.”
After all this, Araceli decided to share the video herself and has also encouraged others to do the same.
A fundraiser page has also been set up for her so she can repair her phone, which was broken during the incident, as well as to replace other things the robber took from her.
The GoFundMe has so far raised more than $16,000 and the money will reportedly be spent on Araceli’s lawyers and the money she lost while jobless.
See the footage by clicking below.
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According to Daily Dot, Carsen Anderson, Senior Manager of Corporate Communications at Subway, made the following statement:
“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.”
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