2 more Parkman Road businesses robbed

One man said he doesn’t think having more police officers would stop robbers.

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — Two more Parkman Road Northwest businesses have been robbed at gunpoint, and a Parkman Road convenience store closed, in part because of crime, its owner said.

Meanwhile, Warren’s police chief says statistics suggest that Parkman Road and the neighborhoods on either side of the street have been hit with an unusually high number of robberies this summer.

About 9 p.m. Sunday, Dollar General, 2800 Parkman Road, was robbed at gunpoint by three young men, witnesses said.

A similar robbery took place about a half mile southeast — at the Movie Gallery, 2320 Parkman Road — at 10 p.m. Friday night, police said.

In the Friday robbery, three teen-age boys wearing dark-colored hoodies and masks used a shotgun and two handguns to rob the store and two customers inside.

A man driving southeast on Parkman Road saw the three youths run out of the store with guns, so he pulled into a driveway on Parkman Road, shined his high-beam lights on them and watched them run onto Northfield Avenue.

Police Chief Tim Bowers said there have been 28 robberies — some armed and some not armed — in the two wards of the city on either side of Parkman Road Northwest since June 1.

Of those, police charged individuals with crimes in five of them, 20 are still open investigations, and three are inactive for reasons such as insufficient information to investigate or the victim knows the robber and has been advised to file charges at the prosecutor’s office, Bowers said.

Of the 28, 11 were on Parkman Road.

“That’s high. That’s a lot of robberies,” Bowers said. “We’re doing what we can with what we’ve got.”

One thing the department has done since the start of the summer is have detectives talk to business owners whose stores have been robbed about installing or improving video surveillance equipment or providing their employees with better training in how to prevent robberies.

Michael McAllister, owner of the Little Mac’s convenient store at 1763 Parkman Road, said he closed the store Friday in part because of an armed robbery that occurred on July 6 and in part because he is old enough to qualify for Social Security benefits.

McAllister, 62, said the store is for sale.

“We definitely experienced a reduction in the customer count as a result of the robbery,” McAllister said.

The store was also robbed at gunpoint on Feb. 21, according to Warren police records.

The store’s manager, Robert Glenn, who was cleaning out the store on Monday, said the store has been fortunate in not being robbed more times this summer.

Having a good relationship with Warren patrol officers, having a safe that would be impossible to remove and following safe practices have kept robberies to a minimum, Glenn said. He thinks the robbery problem is the result of economic conditions causing people to take desperate measures to make money.

“When you’ve got a guy with his back to the wall, he’s going to do what he’s got to do,” especially when he’s got a family or a drug habit, Glenn said.

Larry Dueber, a member of the Northwest Neighborhood Association, said he doesn’t think having more police officers patrolling Parkman Road would help much.

“Even if we had twice as many police officers, they [robbers] would still do what they do,” Dueber said.

Members of the organization patrol residential neighborhoods in northwest Warren to help keep an eye on the homes, but they also try to help businesses where possible, especially those that don’t have surveillance equipment or security officers.

runyan@vindy.com