The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

VIDEO footage has been making the rounds on social media showing two local businesses being robbed by “bold” culprits with guns while shoppers milled about.

McCartney’s Pharmacy and Budget Food Store, both located on East Street and Cordeaux Avenue, confirmed yesterday that they were recently victims of robbery. Police press liaison officer, ASP Audley Peters also confirmed these stores were robbed, but said there have been other incidents of store robberies recently.

“We would’ve had several robberies at stores,” ASP Peters said. “Also, we would’ve also had a number of arrests and even last night (Wednesday) we had an arrest of two persons who attempted a robbery and they’re in custody now along with the firearm. We’ve had a number of other arrests for robberies as well.”

ASP Peters estimated that there were about four incidents that he could recall where people were arrested and firearms were confiscated. However, he could not say whether arrests were made for the incidents involving the pharmacy and the food store.

McCartney’s Pharmacy Senior Manager Clinton McCartney said the robbery happened two days ago, but nobody was hurt.

“We contacted the police and somebody was looking at the video on camera. That was my camera that they were looking on and apparently that got all over the world,” the manager said yesterday.

The footage showed two men calmly standing in front of a female cashier. One of the men gave the woman money. When she opened the cash register, his accomplice directed a gun at the register. The thieves took money from the till before escaping.

Mr McCartney said that the cashier is still taken aback by the encounter.

“She didn’t come in yesterday and she didn’t come today because she’s still upset…. We’ve had robberies before. I know I’ve had a gun put in my face before, but you know I think this was the first, so it really upset her.”

He could not remember how many robberies the pharmacy has had over the years, but recalled “at least four in the past” when guns were involved. Despite the pharmacy being no stranger to these crimes, the senior manager noted that they haven’t had anything like this lately.

“Somebody was bold enough, two young men came in here bold and one had a gun….They just grabbed what they wanted and ran off and other people who were in the pharmacy were not aware of what was happening and neither was I. I was in the back office. I was not aware until the cashier came and told me and then I called the police.”

Regarding the robbery at the food store, a store representative said the incident happened last week Tuesday.

Surveillance video shows the cashier taking out money from the register when a man pointed a gun and appeared to be pulling something from her hand. He walks away while his accomplice goes to obtain money from the register. This happened as customers stood by and watched the thieves leave with the cash.

ASP Peters indicated that videos shared to the public can help as well as hurt police investigations.

“We simply take it as it comes and make use of it. For the most part, persons may say they identify individuals who are the culprits in the matter and that helps in a sense,” ASP Peters said.

“In the other sense, it causes what I would consider a distrust to the system because anyone can put up something and put out a video and that video may not have been a video of a recent robbery or could’ve been a video of a robbery that occurred sometime ago.

“We don’t always give credence to videos that are circulating over social media. There are times those videos are old videos and there are times those videos of a recent incident. So we make our decisions based on the matters that are before us and we look into the incident based on a need-to-know basis.”