2 men hold 2 clerks hostage in robbery

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Two robbers spent 30 minutes inside the Family Dollar store in the Union Square Plaza on Gypsy Lane Friday night, holding two employees hostage while waiting for one of them to take money from the store’s safe.

The two men, one white and one black, eventually fled out the back door of the store with the cash, calling out “Thank you from the South Side Boys, b----es.”

The men arrived at the front door around 9 p.m., just before the two female workers were about to lock up, pushed their way in with guns and demanded money from the safe.

They smashed both of the store’s cordless phones to prevent any 911 calls, police said.

Both men had coverings over their faces, were wearing cream-colored rubber gloves.

They were in the store nearly 30 minutes because one clerk had trouble unlocking the safe, police said. They escaped out a back door and fled east on foot.

Youngstown police checked the area but could not find the suspects, described as being about 5-foot-8-inches and 180 pounds each.

While there, they took the clerks’ cellphones. They put one of the phones behind the store and warned its owner to leave it there for at least 10 minutes after they left.

They took the battery from the other phone and threw it outside.

About 30 minutes after that robbery, two masked men robbed Little Caesar’s restaurant, 3551 Belmont Avenue, in Liberty Township, across from Walmart.

Liberty police said the men brandished handguns and took money, then left on bicycles. Police followed them south into Youngstown, eventually capturing one of them in Crandall Park on the North Side.

Lawaun West, 19, of Ford Street, Youngstown, is in Trumbull County jail, charged with aggravated robbery.

Liberty police said they don’t know if there the two robberies are linked. Little Caesar’s is about a mile north of Family Dollar.