Footage from a security camera shows a man and woman in disguises entering a Calgary convenience store just before 5 a.m. on Aug. 17, the Sun reported.
Night clerk Nisar Ahmed was speaking to a friend on the phone when the pair entered the store, the Sun reported.
“They told me, ‘get down! Get down!’” he told the Sun.
The two people went behind the counter to take cigarettes, and Ahmed said they were free to take what they wanted.
“But he pushed me, and then he started fighting me,” Ahmed told the Sun.
In the video, Ahmed can be seen grabbing at a pick ax-type weapon held by one of the thieves and pulling off his ski mask. They grapple as the female thief begins kicking the clerk and striking him with a tire iron-type implement.
Breaking free, Ahmed ran outside and began barricading the front door, the Sun reported. The man Ahmed was speaking to on the telephone — a clerk working at a nearby store — arrived and assisted him, the Sun reported.
Calgary police confirmed that when officers arrived at the scene after receiving 911 calls, they arrested one male who was being held down by the clerk and a witness to the robbery.
“A second female offender had fled the area prior to police arrival, but was identified shortly after the incident and located later that afternoon," police said.
Arthur Gordon Bennie, 35, of Calgary, faces a number of robbery-related charges, as well as five counts of breaching bail conditions. Natalie Cory-Lyn Elaschuk, 24, of Calgary, also faces a number of robbery-related charges, as well as one count of assault with a weapon, the Sun reported.
Ahmed said he has been receiving compliments from customers after the video went viral.
“People have been coming in to me and saying ‘very good,’” he told the Sun. “I'm thankful to God, that I'm OK.”
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