Papa John’s deliverer paid high price for job
When Corey Levy leaves the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, he won’t go back to delivering pizzas.
“I should have quit a long time ago,” whispered the Papa John’s employee, struggling to talk in The Med’s trau- ma intensive care unit after having a tracheotomy.
Shortly after 10 p.m. on June 6, the 24-year-old University of Memphis sophomore business major had just completed a delivery at the Madison Cypress Lakes apartments in Southeast Memphis and was walking back to his black 2008 Nissan Maxima when a man and two boys approached him, said nothing, shot him in the stomach and took his cash that Thursday night.
Levy, the offspring of Jamaican and Trinidadian parents, had never been robbed before in the 2½ years he delivered pizzas in Southeast Memphis.
After talking to police that night, Levy’s condition worsened and he lost consciousness for nearly a month. He woke up last weekend to good news: his alleged shooter had been arrested.
“He didn’t say anything,” Alvin Levy said of his son’s reaction to the arrest, while standing bedside in his son’s sterilized room wearing a white hospital gown and blue latex gloves. “Tears just streamed down his face. I
hope they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Zaccheus Scott, 19, was charged with especially aggravated robbery and criminal attempted firstdegree murder June 26. He had already been in jail three days for allegedly stealing a car, kidnapping and shooting a man multiple times and setting the car on fire to destroy evidence in another case.
Scott is in jail on $1 million bond and scheduled to appear in court Friday. His alleged accomplices — two boys, ages 15 and 16 — were charged with attempted f irst- degree murder in connection with the shooting and are due in court July 12.
Levy is the latest victim in a line of robberies and shootings of pizza delivery drivers in Memphis.
In March 2011, Papa John’s driver, 56-year-old Ron Brake, was shot and killed while delivering to a Hickory Hill apartment complex.
Eight months later and three miles away, another Papa John’s delivery man shot a would-be robber who hid behind a bush at a Southeast Memphis home.
In 2009, Pizza Hut delivery man Stephen Faulkner, son of the late noted physician Dr. William Faulkner, was slain in East Memphis while delivering to a vacant house.
And in 2002, Pizza Hut delivery driver John Stambaugh, 20, was fatally shot in Cooper-Young and robbed of a $2 tip.
Delivery drivers have more on-the-job fatalities than any of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the country, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2011, 774 people who worked in the sales workers and truck drivers industry, which includes pizza delivery drivers, were fatally injured at work.
Officials with Papa John’s local and national corporate offices did not return calls or e-mails seeking comment; Alvin Levy said the pizza giant won’t return his calls either.
“This multibillion-dollar company could (not) care less,” Alvin Levy said.
Pizza companies’ policies vary on where drivers will deliver.
Domino’s Pizza, for instance, has a policy that allows drivers to refuse deliveries if they feel it’s unsafe, said Chase Jones, a former delivery driver for Domino’s who was robbed in Bartlett in May 2012.
“I was panicking,” he said about the robber showing him the gun. “He asked me for my wallet. It was in my car, but instead of telling him I didn’t have it on me, I reached in my car and gave it to him without thinking.”
He didn’t quit until a year later.
“I understood it was a rare occurrence,” he said. “Before that there hadn’t been a robbery out of that store in five years. Some stores have higher robbery rates.
“You just feel threatened when people come up to you, and you know (that) people know you have money on you,” said the U of M senior, who now works on campus.
Levy didn’t want to deliver to the Southeast Memphis apartment, but he said his manager told him if he didn’t, he would be fired.
While Papa John’s policies take precautionary measures, such as limiting the amounts of cash employees carry and restricting delivery in some areas, it’s one of many pizza chains that won’t let delivery people carry weapons.
The Papa John’s delivery driver who shot the man trying to rob him was fired for violating the weapons policy.
“Papa John’s is creating an environment where you can’t protect yourself,” said Alvin Levy. “They send you out there to get killed for their profits. They need to stop pizza deliveries. It won’t affect their bottom line. McDonald’s doesn’t deliver and it’s still a billion-dollar company.”
He said if the companies don’t stop deliveries, they should at least limit them to the daytime.
But Alvin Levy said he is just thankful his son is alive.
“He shouldn’t have been delivering pizzas in the first place,” Alvin Levy said. “His mom is a dentist and I’m a Realtor. He should’ve been working with us, but he wanted to make his own way.”
Layne Levy, Corey Levy’s mother, said she doesn’t understand why people target drivers.
“Delivery people don’t carry a lot of money on them,” she said. “Don’t take someone’s life over $15. That is heartless.”
Wednesday night, Corey Levy’s ninth surgery didn’t go well and doctors placed him in a drug-induced coma. He will remain sedated until Monday at least, his father said.
Layne Levy said she wished her son would’ve been armed if he was going to insist on delivering. “The driver that was getting robbed, shot the guy and was fired (in 2011), but he is very much alive and not suffering like my child,” she said.