“You have a right to defend yourself.” 7-Eleven fires clerk who shot attacker after being choked and threatened

KOKH FOX 25 reporter Robert Hagan says it started like a normal late shift at an Oklahoma City 7-Eleven.

Twenty-five-year-old clerk Stephanie Dilyard was working alone, just before midnight, when a man walked in and tried to pay for burritos, beef sticks, and ice cream with what she believed was a counterfeit $100 bill.

What followed, according to Hagan and Dilyard, was not a simple customer dispute.

It was a fight for survival.

Dilyard told Hagan that when she refused the fake bill, the man became violent.

“He threatened me and said that he was going to slice my head off,” she said.

That’s when she tried to call police.

Instead of backing down, she says, he started throwing things at her, came behind the counter, and chased her when she tried to run.

Then, she says, he grabbed his hands around her neck and pushed her out of the counter space.

“At that point,” Dilyard told FOX 25, “that’s when I pulled out my gun and I shot him.”

Police Say It Was Lawful Self-Defense

Robert Hagan reports that police identified the suspect as 59-year-old Kenneth Thompson.

After being shot in the stomach, Thompson ran from the store to a nearby intersection at MacArthur Boulevard and Northwest 34th Street and called 911.

Officers quickly pieced together what happened inside the store.

Hagan says Oklahoma City police concluded that Dilyard’s actions fell under Oklahoma’s self-defense law.

In other words, from the law enforcement perspective, this was justified self-defense: a smaller, unarmed clerk being strangled and threatened with decapitation who used a firearm only when she was cornered and out of options.

Hagan reports that Thompson was later arrested at the hospital and charged with assault and battery, threatening acts of violence, attempting to pass a fake bill, and a felony warrant for violating parole.

So criminally, the suspect was treated as the aggressor.

Legally, the state recognized Dilyard as the victim defending herself.

But that’s not how her employer responded.

Corporate Policy Over A Clerk’s Survival

Hagan says that on Monday morning, just days after the attack, 7-Eleven corporate called Dilyard.

She expected support.

Instead, she got fired.

According to Dilyard, human resources told her they were going to “separate from employment because of a violation of policy.”

Her violation?

Using her own gun to stop a man from choking her.

Hagan notes that Dilyard had worked the 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift alone for more than two years.

When FOX 25 interviewed her, she still had a scratch on her neck and burns on her finger from firing the pistol.

Dilyard told Hagan she felt she had been forced into an impossible choice.

“This was a situation where I felt like I was put in a corner between choosing between my job and my life,” she said.

“And I’m always going to choose my life because there’s people that depend on me. I’m going home. I need to be here for my kids.”

Dilyard also told FOX 25 that the company expected her to use “store items” for self-defense instead of a firearm.

That detail makes the story feel even more surreal.

The message, from her point of view, is that she was allowed to be attacked, but not allowed to use the one tool that actually saved her.

“She Got Fired For Not Dying”

Gun rights commentator Colion Noir picked up the story in a video on his channel, using Hagan’s reporting as the basis and adding his own blistering analysis.

“So, a man tries to strangle a woman behind a 7-Eleven counter,” Noir says, “and she gets fired for defending her own life.”

He repeats that 7-Eleven corporate called her and fired her for using her own gun, pointing out that she was working overnight, alone, in what he calls “one of the most notoriously dangerous retail jobs in America.”

“Everyone knows 7-Eleven overnight is basically a slot machine for crime,” Noir says.

He walks through the same facts that Hagan reported: the death threat, the attempt to call police, the thrown items, the chase behind the counter, the hands around her neck, and finally the shot.

To Noir, the sequence is crystal clear.

“She retreats. He attacks. She shoots. Textbook self-defense. Period.”

Noir emphasizes that police said Dilyard is protected under Oklahoma’s self-defense law.

“So what does 7-Eleven do?” he asks.

“They fire her.”

He argues that by punishing her, the company is effectively saying, “Die quietly, or you’re fired,” even though he uses different words to make that point.

The Message This Sends To Criminals – And Workers

Noir is especially critical of the idea that Dilyard was supposed to use “store items” as her only allowed defense.

To him, that sends a dangerous signal.

“You know what message that sends?” he asks.

“It tells criminals, ‘Hey guys, come rob 7-Eleven. None of our employees will fight back because we’ll fire them if they do.’”

He says it might as well be a neon sign reading “robbers welcome, no resistance here.”

On top of that, Noir points out that Dilyard was not a wealthy professional with endless job options.

“She’s working because she needs to work,” he says.

She wasn’t out looking for a fight – she was standing behind a counter trying to get through a graveyard shift.

Noir also notes that she did everything people are told to do. She tried to de-escalate. She tried to call the police. She retreated until she physically couldn’t retreat anymore.

Only after Thompson allegedly strangled her and threatened to cut her head off did she pull the trigger.

From his perspective, “the fact that this is even a debate is absolutely disgusting.” There’s a harsh truth in that commentary.

If a woman in Dilyard’s situation can be fired after doing everything the law says she can do to save her own life, it sends a chilling warning to other workers.

Especially to women working alone at night.

A Mother, Her Kids, And The Real Cost Of Self-Defense

Both Hagan and Noir highlight that Dilyard is not just a clerk with a name tag.

She is a mother with children depending on her.

Her own words to FOX 25 are simple but powerful: “I’m always going to choose my life because there’s people that depend on me… I need to be here for my kids.”

Noir builds on that, saying jobs come and go, but “your life doesn’t.”

He argues that 7-Eleven essentially wanted her to choose being strangled to death over violating company policy.

He also points out that even when you are legally justified, like police say Dilyard was, you can still be punished in other ways – losing your job, facing possible lawsuits, or dealing with the financial and emotional fallout.

That’s why, he says, gun owners need legal protection and training, because doing “everything right” doesn’t guarantee a soft landing afterward.

In Dilyard’s case, the criminal suspect faces charges, but she faces unemployment.

That imbalance is part of what makes the story resonate so strongly with people who carry for self-defense.

“You Have A Right To Defend Yourself”

At the end of his report, Robert Hagan notes that Dilyard hopes her experience becomes a wake-up call so other clerks – especially women – don’t end up hurt or killed.

“If I know that there’s a potential where somebody could be for real in taking my life away, that I will do whatever it takes,” she told FOX 25.

“I hope that women see that, and they’ll do the same thing. You have the right to defend yourself.”

That line, coming from Dilyard herself, is the heart of the story.

She isn’t pushing politics.

She’s describing what it feels like to have someone’s hands around your throat and to realize that no one is coming to help you in time.

From Hagan’s straight news reporting to Colion Noir’s passionate commentary, the picture is consistent.

A woman working alone at a dangerous hour survived an attack, was cleared by the law, and then lost her paycheck because she refused to be a victim.

Whether people agree with guns in the workplace or not, the core question is hard to ignore:

When your life is on the line, should company policy matter more than your right to stay alive?

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The article “You have a right to defend yourself.” 7-Eleven fires clerk who shot attacker after being choked and threatened first appeared on Survival World.