(CNN/WSVN) — A former pizza shop manager in Massachusetts is accused of trying to rob his old workplace.
Police say a man wearing a mask and carrying what turned out to be a fake gun walked into Northeast Pizza in Barre, a town about 70 miles west of Boston, on Tuesday.
Surveillance video shows the man climbing over the counter and forcing one of the workers to help him open the register.
“He jumped over the counter and had the gun pointed at my friend’s head while choking him against the wall,” pizza shop worker Trevor Kosla told 7News.
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Employees wrestled him to the floor and held him there until police arrived.
When officers responded and took off the intruder’s mask, employees recognized the would-be robber as a former manager who was fired last summer.
“He looked up at me and said, ‘Trevor, please,’ and I was like, ‘I know that voice,'” Kosla said. “He kept yelling at me to stop, that it was a joke. I said, ‘I don’t care who you are, this is not a joke.'”
But police — and his former colleagues — are not laughing.
The former manager faces charges of armed robbery, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace.
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