Termination for Self-Defense

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ktmhk53

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Video here:

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/3320630/detail.html

Deliveryman: I Shot Man In Self-Defense
Prosecutors To Review Case

POSTED: 7:22 pm EST May 18, 2004

INDIANAPOLIS -- A pizza deliveryman says he was protecting himself when he fatally shot a man outside an apartment A Pizza Hut deliveryman who police say fatally shot a man on the city's east side Monday night says he acted in self-defense.

Man Had Gun, Deliveryman Says
Ronald Honeycutt, 38, of Carmel, says he had just delivered a pizza at the Oaks Apartments around 11 p.m. Monday when a man approached him with a gun.

Honeycutt (pictured, left), who was near his delivery van and had his own gun, fired 15 times at the man, later identified as Jerome Brown, 20, of Indianapolis. Brown was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

"The only thing I can do is protect myself, and if that means shooting somebody that intends to shoot you, so be it," Honeycutt told RTV6's Jack Rinehart Tuesday.

Honeycutt said that after the shooting, he picked up Brown's handgun and drove to a Pizza Hut, where sheriff's deputies took him into custody. Police questioned Honeycutt and then released him.

Pizza Hut, which has a policy forbidding deliverymen to carry weapons, fired Honeycutt soon after the shooting, Rinehart reported.

The county coroner's office Tuesday determined Brown died of multiple gunshot wounds.

Good Guy

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Bad Guy

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I suggest that everyone boycott Pizza Hut until they reinstate Mr. Honeycutt.

You can voice your opposition to his termination here:

http://www.pizzahut.com/contact/feedback_other.asp


ktmhk53
 
See, eating that stuff is bad for you! :D

Don't be dissing Hoosiers, home skillet; this isn't Chicago, gee money! The state got props for kicking backside and continues to do so!:p

Edit: when I say "home skillet" I mean personal pan pizza skillet, of course!
 
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The survey on that site asks whether you are for or against a delivery guy packing ... out of 1100 votes so far ... 75% are in favor of allowing packing .... and I am one of them!
 
Dear Sir!
I am an Israeli Pizza Hut customer - or should I say, an ex-Pizza Hutt customer?

After hearing that your company has fired Mr. Ronald Honeycutt for carrying a gun he used to defend his life. I'm not going to waste words about the futility of your policy with you. I will just say this: if he followed your policy, he'd be dead now.

Would you really rather see your employees dead and your products and money stolen than see them defend themselves? Is it just to punish a man for protecting his life?

These are questions for your conscience. But my conscience is clear on this: what you did was immoral and disgusting.

You will not see a dime of my money until you admit your error and reinstate Mr. Honeycutt .
Your ex-customer,
Boris Karpa,
Ashdod, Israel
 
Ah, but by shooting the bad guy, the delivery man eliminated a potential CUSTOMER! :barf:

Seriously, this type of thing is really low . . . by firing him, they're saying that they prefer the deliverymay DIE rather than violate policy. <fill in your choice of expletives.>
 
I am glad the delivery man is okay. Losing a job at Pizza Hut is not the end of the world. He'll find another. As for boycotting, no biggie, their pizza is not really that good!
 
:mad: Lawyers again. PH is a very deep pocket to be picked in an endless WD Suit....... for all we know, they have probably already settled out of court.
 
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I'm writing in regards to the incident concerning the shooting in Indianapolis recently. Ronald Honeycutt, an employee of Pizza Hut, had just delivered a pizza when he was approached by someone threatening his life with a gun. Mr. Honeycutt was armed, and defended his life. After the shooting, Mr. Honeycutt picked up his assailant's weapon and returned to home base, where he was taken into custody by sheriff's deputies and then released.

Afterward, Mr. Honeycutt was fired by Pizza Hut because there is a rule forbidding drivers from carrying weapons. I'm familiar with rules like these; I used to drive for Papa John's Pizza. However, in the area I delivered in, several drivers had been beaten in robberies; one girl was sent to the hospital for 2 large pizzas and $10. I disobeyed this rule, and I know of a number of other drivers who did as well.

I guess I understand why you have the rule. I do not agree with it, but you're afraid of the liability. However, I'm glad that Mr. Honeycutt was able to defend himself. Who knows what his deceased assailant would have done? Would he have just taken his money and whatever pizza he had? Or would he have killed him in addition to robbing him? We'll never know, because Mr. Honeycutt had a gun, and his assailant is dead.

If you check the records associated with this e-mail address, you can probably pull up my order history here. If you pull up my order history in a few months, you'll find that my fairly regular ordering pattern has been interrupted. I have no desire to do business with a company that values the lives of its employees so cheaply that you would forbid them from carrying a weapon when doing what is, in fact, a dangerous job (one statistic indicates that you are third most likely to be killed on the job as a pizza delivery driver, behind taxi drivers and policemen).

I guess I'm lucky I live in a town with so many options for pizza delivery.
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Thanks for posting this story. I used to drive for Papa John's. I was never jacked, but my friend Butch almost got shot because he only had $7 in his pocket when he got robbed, which pissed his attackers off. He told me that the guy had the muzzle of "a large black gun" pressed right up under his eye and the guy told Butch that if he didn't have more money, he was going to kill him. He believes to this day that the only thing that saved his life was a police cruiser that happened to drive by on the street in front of the apartment complex he was delivering to. The policeman didn't stop, or even slow down, so it's certain he didn't even see what was going on, but the guy got spooked and ran. At which point Butch got in his car, drove back to the store, called the cops, and had a nervous breakdown.
 
Remember, KFC and Taco Bell are owned by PepsiCo as well as Pizza Hut. My email to Pizza Hut also informed them that neither KFC or Taco Bell would be receiving any of my money either.
 
My employer has a no weapons policy. I would expect to be fired if I did something like this. That being said, I'd rather be fired than dead!
 
Welcome to what truck drivers have to deal with.

Not only company policy, but Federal law forbids us from packing at work.

As for boycotting, I don't think it'll have a lot of effect. We're subhuman cogs in the machine. We're those a-holes that the Company unfortunately has to deal with to get things done. If we get killed, what do they care? They'll find another wheel-turner to take our place--after all, it's not like we matter or anything.

(Y'all excuse me...I'm just feeling particularly bitter about my employer tonight. Long story. But that's the attitude we get a lot--we're expendable.) See my post under TFL Bikers for a couple more details.
 
It's lousy pizza and a lousy attitude toward the company's employees. I don't ever do business with anti-Second Amendment bigots.
 
Pepsi owns these companys. Don't buy any of their soda,water,or lemonaide. Write them and tell them. Patrick
 
Stupid policy. But I daresay he knew what it was, and made his own judgement call - I'd have made the same decision. And I would also anticipate being fired. Oh, well. Over the years that I've seen this sort of thing happen, the fired employee almost always gets a much better job working for someone having a firm grasp of reality.

Not worded as good as I would've liked, but this is what I posted at their customer feedback:
So, your misguided (and I daresay largely ignored) policy of forbidding your employees the means to defend themselves has resulted in the necessity of firing Mr. Ronald Honeycutt in the Indianapolis area. Fortunately Mr. Honeycutt is still alive to look for another job - I only wish I was a small businessman in that area so I could offer him one. As for Pizza Hut, well, guess I'll have to take a pass from now on - I'd not want to be the customer one of your unarmed drivers died trying to deliver to.
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I totally agree with you guys about this and when I first read it I was outraged at Pizza Hut for firing the guy and having a policy that PROMOTES and encourages crime by armed criminals.

Having said all of that, I also tried to think about it from Pizza Hut's point of view. If they encourage Joe Blow pizza guy to pack heat, they are going to get sued when Joe defends himself. They are still going to get sued, even with their policy. But that's pretty much corporate America these days -- fine print EVERYTHING if it will help avoid a large judgement. As much as Pizza Hut, I blame lack of tort reform, greed from all sides, and the anti-gun sentiment in general. Just a thought, I'm not taking Pizza Hut's side at all, but there are reasons other than hating guns that they may have formed this policy. (Isn't MONEY the real reason that ANY successful corporation forms policies?)
 
I sent my message to the PizzaHut website, and to Pepsico. None of these messages will change things though. Its like sending letters to one of Florida's Senators. you get a polite letter back, saying thanks but the Senator is going to keep on keeping on being a Liberal left winger, and doing his best to gut the Constitution, and everything you believe in. "Thanks for writing"
 
Back when I used to work for a convenience store chain in Atlanta that prohibited employees from carrying, I broke company policy every day. I would've expected to be fired, of course, if I had to use the gun, but I'm sure that some other, more sensible employer would've been happy to rectify that.

As one of my LEO customers on third shift told me: "I'd rather see you alive and unemployed than a dead good employee."


(PS: If y'all want to see Pizza Hut change their policy, I'm not sure writing letters will help. Figure out a way to make this a less litigious society, and they won't care if their drivers have belt-fed fifty cals on the roof...)
 
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