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Police seek suspects in thefts at stores
YOUNGSTOWN
Police continue to search for suspects in the robbery of a North Side discount store and also an armed thief who robbed an East Side discount store.
Police do not believe the two robberies are related at this point, but are still investigating.
The most recent robbery took place at 9:20 a.m. Monday at a Dollar General store on McCartney Road. The store employee was unable to give police a description of the armed thief.
According to police reports, the male employee was walking to his car to make a bank deposit when he was approached from behind by an unidentified man. The employee said the assailant pushed him up against his car and put what he believed to be a gun to his head.
The thief grabbed a Huntington Bank money bag from the hands of the employee, then ran off.
There is no exact figure for what was contained in the bank bag.
Police continue looking for two men involved in the armed robbery of a discount store on the North Side just three days ago.
The two thieves spent 30 minutes inside the Family Dollar store in the Union Square Plaza on Gypsy Lane on 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, 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.
Both men had coverings over their faces and were wearing cream-colored rubber gloves. They smashed both of the store’s cordless phones to prevent any 911 calls.
The thieves also 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.
The two men eventually fled out the back door of the store with the cash.
Detective Mike Lambert said there is always an increase in robberies around the holidays.
These particular robberies, he said, appear to be unrelated because the methods used by the thieves are different.
The East Side robbery, Lambert said, appeared to be a crime of opportunity where the thief was looking for a workers involved in a daily routine.
He said such crimes possibly can be avoided by store clerks changing their routines and not allowing anyone to pinpoint a time when there will be an opportunity for crime.