CRIME Police seek suspect in robbery of clerk making a night deposit

YOUNGSTOWN -- The search continues for the man who used a stick -- likely a stairway banister -- to hit and rob a Sparkle Market clerk making a night deposit on South Meridian Road.
The robbery happened at 8:45 p.m. Monday. More than $15,000 was in the bank deposit bag, along with nearly $5,000 in personal checks, reports show.
The 21-year-old clerk told police he was walking next door, to Farmers National Bank, when a man carrying a large wooden stick came at him. The clerk was hit in the back and right shoulder and knocked to the ground as he tried to run back to the store's front doors.
The robber grabbed the locked bank deposit bag and ran eastbound toward the Brandywine Apartment complex on Flo Lor Drive behind the store .
The clerk described the robber as a 6-foot very thin man wearing black pants, black hooded sweatshirt and full black ski mask. The mask concealed all other physical traits, including age and race.
The robber dropped the stick as he ran, and the clerk brought it into the store. The stick was taken as evidence.
Austintown police aided in a canvass of the area and Boardman police sent their search dog, but the robber eluded them.