Youtube motivates Dunkin Donuts employee to fight robber

**Jenna** · 12-11-07, 06:49 PM

A Dunkin' Donuts employee who whacked a robber over the head with a tip cup Sunday night said only one thought was running through his mind – not looking like a wimp on YouTube.
Dustin Hoffmann, a borough musician who has worked at the coffee and doughnuts chain for 10 months, said he fought back because he wanted to "look good" if the surveillance tape turned up on the popular video-sharing Web site.

"What was going through my mind at that point was that the security tape is either going to show me run away and hide in the office or whack this guy in the head, so I just grabbed the cup and clocked that guy pretty hard," Hoffmann said Monday.
The robber walked into Dunkin' Donuts on westbound Route 46 shortly after 5:30 p.m., ordered a blueberry cake doughnut and handed Hoffmann a dollar bill, Police Chief Donald Ingrasselino said.
As Hoffmann opened the register, the bandit lunged at him behind the counter and started grabbing cash, Ingrasselino said.
But Hoffmann didn't give up the money easily, attempting to stop the robber by grabbing his wrists and hitting him over the head repeatedly with a metal cup used for holding tips, the chief said.
Police are attempting to download the surveillance video in a digital format, but Hoffmann said once it's available, he is putting it on YouTube himself.
"There are only a few videos like that on YouTube now, so mine's going to be the best," Hoffmann said. "That'll teach this guy."
The robber fled with $290 in cash, but not before losing his baseball cap in the scuffle, said Ingrasselino.
The robber, who police described as an unshaven, 5-foot-10 to 6-foot tall white man in his 30s, with a medium build, black hair and long sideburns, was wearing a black baseball cap, a blue sweatshirt, a white T-shirt, blue jeans and beige work boots.
Police believe he is the same man who robbed two Dunkin' Donuts in the past two weeks – one on Route 46 in Parsippany, in which he stole $1,500, and the other on Route 10 in East Hanover in late November.
In January, a Belleville man was charged in connection with a string of burglaries at Dunkin' Donuts shops in Paramus, Garfield, Rutherford and Lodi.

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