Robberies are improvised encounters involving offender threat, sometimes
force, and often victim resistance. While the association between threat,
force, and resistance in robberies is well-established, sequential patterns are
disputed due to biases of retrospective studies. To overcome these biases,
we draw on CCTV camera recordings of 49 store robberies. Tentative
findings suggest that lethal threat reduces victim resistance and
thereby offender violence, except in robberies where offenders depend on victims in accessing the valuables. In those robberies, lethal threat increases the
likelihood of victim resistance despite having no effect on offender vio-
lence. By providing more reliable and detailed accounts of real-life behavior
during robberies, our analysis illustrates the potential of a newly emergent
field of studies of crimes caught on camera.