Dissatisfied with some aspect of the service he was receiving from Verizon, a tempestuous Connecticut man declared he would go to their Glastonbury store and shoot everyone there. Ugly customer.
The Verizon workers at the store didn’t like this plan. They called police and notified them of their possible imminent deaths in a fusillade of bullets.
According to the illustrious Hartford Courant, when police came to the store, the angry man, Gregory J. Kelley, was on the line with a Verizon employee, and Kelley was apologizing.
Probably the apologies were why the police decided not to evacuate the store. But they still went to Kelley’s house and arrested him. They charged him with second-degree threatening, second-degree breach of peace, and second-degree harassment, but didn’t make him post bail to go home.
I’d like to say we’ve all been there, but the example of Gary Oldman reminds me not to assume that everyone is exactly like me. In situations where I am talking to tech support, I can get upset. A case could easily be made against me for second-degree grim aspect, second-degree ma’am/sir utterance, and even first-degree bitter sarcasm.
But I have never threatened to go anywhere and shoot anyone. That was neither a good thing nor a wise thing for Kelley to do. (He’s 61. Surely old enough to know better?)
Some businesses probably get death threats all the time. (Which may be one reason why some businesses make themselves hard to locate. “I’m speaking to you from the cloud, sir. It won’t be possible for you to come by and pour fish sauce into my headset.”)
An 1875 fusillade which killed Constable Gifford, but no phone company employees. (The Caraquet Riots, New Brunswick.)
This incident inspired William Neilson Jr. at Android Authority to a short rundown of threats and violence in phone stores. It might be interesting to score businesses on the frequency of death threats. (Hey! Niche business opportunity to set up independent scoring entity, youregoingdown.com.)
No mention of apologies in those other cases. But in this instance, saying sorry prevented evacuation of the store, which would have been a huge nuisance. Saying sorry showed rationality, although belated. If they’d had to evacuate, that might make the court take a grimmer view of Kelley’s upcoming case.
I’m calling it a good apology.
