Pizza Hut fires employee who shot robber

DES MOINES, Iowa, April 25 (UPI) -- Pizza Hut has fired an Iowa deliveryman who fought off an armed robber because the deliveryman violated company rules on carrying a weapon.

A company spokesman said that James Williams Spiers III had been offered a severance package including counseling and help finding another job, The Des Moines (Iowa) Register reported.

"I was terminated but they're not going to kick me to the curb," Spiers told the newspaper Friday. "When they terminated me, I had asked if they could provide me with counseling. That's all I asked for."

Spiers had a permit for the handgun he used to shoot and disarm a man who held him up in Des Moines in late March. A suspect was arrested when he went to a hospital for treatment and a woman has been charged with calling in a phony order to set up the robbery.

State Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, urged Iowa residents to boycott Pizza Hut.

"You tell me any Iowan that was in his situation, that had a gun put to his head, how they would've reacted differently," Zaun told the Register.