And you thought Apple Store employees were nice as well as knowledgeable. In Louisville, Ky., one quick-thinking worker helped rescue a woman who told the clerk she'd been kidnapped.
The woman said she'd been forced to go into the store to buy phones for a man she said had taken her against her will from her home.
Louisville police arrested 32-year-old Victor A. Sarver last Saturday night around the time the Apple Store was due to close. They apprehended him in the Oxmoor Mall parking lot, police spokesman Dwight Mitchell told NBC News. Sarver is charged with first-degree robbery and kidnapping.
The victim, whose name was not released to NBC News by police, told the officers that Sarver contacted her Saturday for what she thought was going to be a date. When he got to her house, however, he pulled a gun on her and told her to do what he said. That included forcing her into a car with him, and going to stores in the area to buy cellphones using her money.
The first time she had a chance to say something to anyone apparently was in the Apple Store, where she told a clerk — who is not identified in the police report — that she needed help, but not in choosing a cellphone.
Calmly and without drama, the clerk called mall security, which in turn called police immediately, said Mitchell.
The Apple Store worker "absolutely did the right thing, and very discretely," he said. "Mall security was able to come in and get the woman without incident. And no one was hurt."
Contacted Wednesday for comment about its employee, an Apple spokeswoman told NBC News the company didn't have any statement, not even about whether the employee might get some kind of reward or bonus — a new iPhone this fall? An iTunes gift card?
"This is a law enforcement issue," said the spokeswoman.
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