- The unidentified eight-year-old grabbed an aluminum bat at the liquor store
- She was seen whacking the suspect, Conchobhar Morrell, 37
A brave young girl was filmed beating an armed robber with a baseball bat as she tried to defend her father – a manager at a liquor store.
The unidentified eight-year-old immediately sprang into action and grabbed the aluminum bat at the Big Discount Liquors in Maplewood, Minnesota on Saturday night, while her father was working at the counter.
She was seen whacking the suspect – who has since been identified as Conchobhar Morrell, 37, of St. Paul – while her father wrestled him on the ground.
‘I’m so proud of her, she’s so strong,’ the girl’s father, Leo, told CBS News, adding that he didn’t realize his daughter was trying to help him until he saw the surveillance footage.
‘When I saw the video, I didn’t expect she’d do that. I expect[ed] a little girl crying, screaming.’
A young girl was caught on surveillance footage beating a robber with a baseball bat at her father’s liquor store
The girl’s father, Leo, said he was ‘proud’ of his little girl, as he showed off the aluminum bat she used
He said he was preparing to close the store at around 9.30pm on Saturday, when Morrell walked in and wandered through the store.
He grabbed a bottle of liquor and brought it to the register, according to the Star Tribune.
Morrell was then caught on surveillance footage wearing an Amazon uniform and reaching into his pocket and setting a realistic-looking BB gun on the counter.
‘He [Morrell] put the gun on the table, he asked me to give him all the money an everything in the register,’ Leo recounted. ‘I told him, “Yes – I’ll give you everything.”‘
He said he tried to reason with the apparently armed robber, and said he could have all of the money from the cash register as long as his daughter – who was behind the counter with him – was safe.
‘I tried to talk to him and say, “I got my daughter here. Can you put the gun down, move it away from her? I will give you everything, take everything.”
‘It’s money, I don’t care, I just care about the safety for her,’ Leo explained.
But Morrell instead grabbed the gun and walked behind the counter, with the weapon in his hand.
The suspect – Conchobhar Morrell, 37, of St. Paul – was caught on surveillance footage reaching into his pocket and pulling out a realistic-looking BB gun
Even though Leo said he tried to reason with the armed robber and offered him all of the money, Morrell walked behind the counter with the gun in hand
Leo instantly tried fighting him off, punching the man and wrestling him to the floor.
‘I’m a dad, I’m not going to let that happen,’ he explained.
But just a few seconds later, his little girl could be seen in the surveillance footage with a bat in hand.
She hit the suspect, still on the ground, several times before running away.
Eventually, Leo was able wrestle the gun from Morrell, who fled the scene without any money or his weapon, according to the Star Tribune.
Police spotted him shortly thereafter with a scrape below one eye and blood on his lips, walking a few hundred feet north of the store.
Morrell is now charged with first-degree attempted aggravated robbery, and is being held in jail in lieu of a $40,000 bail before his court hearing on Friday
At first, Morrell resisted arrest, but eventually surrendered to cops, police say.
Still, he denied being in the store, and said he was only in the area to visit a nearby tobacco store.
Morrell also allegedly claimed that his facial injuries were from a fight two days earlier and must have reopened.
A spokesperson for Amazon said Morrell was a delivery associate for a third-party delivery service delivering packages for Amazon.
He will be ‘immediately offboarded,’ the spokesperson said.
Morrell is now charged with first-degree attempted aggravated robbery, and is being held in jail in lieu of a $40,000 bail before his court hearing on Friday.
He has previously been convicted of first-degree robbery in Minnesota in 2004.