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2 dollar stores in city robbed
YOUNGSTOWN
City police are investigating several thefts and robberies at businesses across town, including a burglary and armed robbery at two different dollar stores in the same 24-hour period.
Police were called to the Dollar General store on McGuffey Road at 7:18 p.m. Thursday after employees were held at gunpoint and robbed by three men.
According to police, the three thieves approached a manager at the counter with one of the men handing the woman a note demanding money. The man yelled at the woman to hurry up and take the money out of the safe, but she could not open the safe without a manager.
The trio of thieves ultimately ran out of the business with about $284.
Earlier that morning, police responded to the Dollar General in the 2000 block of Market Street for a breaking-and-entering report.
Police found a broken window and a footprint on the counter of the business and watched surveillance footage of what took place inside the store. The tapes show a black man about 5 feet 11 inches wearing a white mask, a Russian-style fur hat with hanging flaps, gray hoodie, dark jeans and dark tennis shoes trying to break the handle off a safe using a hammer.
The thief left the store after taking only the Literacy Fund donation container sitting on the counter. A second man waited outside while the robbery took place.
No arrests were made in either of the Dollar General store robberies, but police charged Ajuante Toney, 18, of North Lakeview Avenue with theft and resisting arrest after trying to steal a $100 pair of boots from the Two Guys clothing store inside 20 Federal Place downtown Thursday.
Police said Toney ran past officers and out the building’s side door with a store clerk chasing him saying he had just robbed the store.
Police arrested Toney two blocks away wearing one of the boots and one tennis shoe.
The clerk said Toney and a group of other men came into the store at about 12:40 p.m. Toney asked to try on the boots then ran out wearing one boot and one tennis shoe, but carrying the matching boot.
A 38-year-old South Avenue man was treated at St. Elizabeth Health Center for a gunshot wound to the hand late Thursday night after trying to fight off an armed man during a robbery.
According to police, the man was walking along Rush Boulevard near East Florida when he was accosted by the thief demanding money.
The man said he fought with the thief until he was tired and heard the gun go off. He handed the thief $300 and realized he had been shot in the hand.