Police arrest two men, one juvenile in armed robbery
A clerk was shot in the leg when he pursued the suspects.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- Police arrested two Youngstown men and a 17-year-old Austintown boy in connection with the armed robbery of the Sav-A-Step Food Mart at 4226 Mahoning Ave.
Youngstown police said Wednesday night that detectives will question the three today about other area robberies, including the May 2 robbery of AutoZone on the East Side in which store clerk Edward Agee, 52, of Star Street, was shot to death.
Deondray L. Robinson, 18, of Delaware Avenue, Youngstown, and Deaunte T. Riley, 18, of South Avenue, Youngstown, were arraigned Wednesday on charges of aggravated robbery and held in Mahoning County Jail on $25,000 bond each.
The juvenile is being held in a detention facility, police said, declining to release his name.
Police said the juvenile and Riley, both carrying handguns, entered the store around 11:50 p.m. Tuesday and the juvenile put a gun to the head of a clerk, demanding money.
Riley took the cash register drawer containing an estimated $1,600 and fled the store, police said.
The clerk told police he grappled with the juvenile but the boy broke away and ran out the door. The clerk said he followed and the juvenile fired one shot at him, striking him in the left calf. Police and a hospital manager said the clerk was treated at St. Elizabeth Health Center for the wound.
Witnesses told police the two suspected robbers ran to a parking lot on Edgehill Avenue and got into a waiting gold Pontiac 6000. Police later identified the driver as Robinson.
Youngstown officers stopped the car a short time later at the Mahoning Avenue entrance ramp to Interstate 680, and Riley and the juvenile were identified by witnesses as the two who robbed the store and got into the waiting car, police said.
The cash register drawer, a revolver loaded with one spent round and seven live rounds, a grocery bag containing a large number of bullets, a bulletproof vest and several hundred dollars in cash were found in the car, police said. A second gun apparently wasn't recovered.
Police said the revolver found in the car matched the gun used in the robbery of Charlie Staples Bar-B-Que restaurant on West Rayen Avenue, Youngstown, on Friday.
Several shots were fired at a female clerk at that business, but no one was injured, police said. Robbers in that case also fled in what appeared to be a light-colored Pontiac 6000, police said.