Thrift store clerk robbed while making deposit

YOUNGSTOWN — A gunman wearing a ski mask escaped with about $340 in thrift store receipts in a drive-by robbery of the store clerk, who was walking to a nearby bank depository, the clerk told police.

As he was walking from the store to the depository at 4:39 p.m. Saturday, the clerk from the Outreach Thrift Store, 3317 Mahoning Ave., told police he noticed a man sitting in a car in the parking lot, but thought nothing of it.

The BB-gun-toting robber then drove alongside him and onto the sidewalk, and demanded and received the money bag at gunpoint, the clerk reported.

Police found a white Buick Century, which had been reported stolen in Niles, abandoned nearby on California Avenue with its engine idling and driver’s door open, with a BB gun on the driver’s seat, but the robber was nowhere to be found.