INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) - The general manager of a west Indianapolis Jiffy Lube has dealt with his share of customers over the years, but none, he says, who got violent to try and get what they wanted.
That all changed Tuesday afternoon.
"He don't want to talk. He just want to more or less fight," said Jiffy Lube general manager Elvis Kpodo.
That was painfully clear to the 53-year-old Kpodo, after he says a customer held a tire iron to his head demanding a refund for service he was unhappy about.
"He push it on my skull," said Kpodo of the man's actions.
Surveillance video captured the back of the customer's head right before Kpodo says the man went outside to his car and got the tire iron.
"His word is like, 'Okay, I told you if I come back here, I'm gonna turn the building upside down and I'm gonna beat you,'" Kpodo recalled.
"At that point, I said, 'Okay, go ahead. If you're going to beat me, go ahead and beat me'," Kpodo said he told him, explaining he stayed calm for everyone around him. "In a situation like that I need to make sure everybody is calm because if I'm panicked the whole group will be panicked."
According to Kpodo, the man was unhappy with service he had received earlier and wanted a refund right then and there.
Kpodo tried to explain it had to come from the corporate office.
"He didn't give me the chance to talk to him. Anything I said, he didn't want to hear anything," said Kpodo. "When he was moving towards me with the jack handle, that's when I said, 'Okay, I think I need to call police.'"
It turns out, another employee was thinking the same thing and pushed a panic button to alert police something was wrong and they needed help.
"He saw one of the employee pushing it, so he looked for whatever he pushed and then took it and ripped it off," said Kpodo of the man who he says ran off before police could talk to him.
So far, there have been no arrests.
