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Lawmaker calls for tougher safety laws after shooting

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A state lawmaker and the brother-in-law of a 2011 shooting victim are speaking out after a clerk was shot at a gas station Tuesday morning.

They say Indiana needs tougher laws to keep convenience store clerks safe, and they’ve fought for those changes for years.

State Rep. Ed Delaney walked into the gas station Tuesday afternoon and said he didn’t like what he saw.

“It could happen again. In that store,” he said. “There are a lot of other stores that do a much better job than this one, and we ought to be legislating about it.”

He wants some stores with a history of crime to have bullet-proof glass protection for employees. He’s also calling for certain visibility and lighting standards.

“This store doesn’t have the visibility that it should have,” he said of the gas station where the crime occurred.

The problem for Delaney: his bill has gone nowhere.

The bill is opposed by the Indiana Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association. That group’s executive director, Scot Imus, points to a study from a South Dakota research company that says bullet proof glass is an “unvalidated” measure to deter violence from stores.

According to the study, some robbers said they would wait to commit the crime until an employee walked outside the safety enclosure.

“Convenience store owners take employee safety very seriously and have implemented, and constantly revise, safety standards that are appropriate to each location,” Imus said.

Perry Tole, however, said bulletproof glass could have protected his sister-in-law, Marcella Birnell. She was a convenience store clerk in 2011 when she was shot in the head.

“You better believe that tonight, every other convenience store worker is going to reminded that it could them and it could be tonight,” Tole said.

Birnell survived with brain damage. Her nickname is Marcy, and that’s why Delaney’s proposed bill has been dubbed “Marcy’s Law.”

Delaney said he doubt he’ll ever see it become more than idea.

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