Updated at 3:19 p.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
A clerk working alone at the Grand Mound AM/PM store was frightened but otherwise unharmed when she was robbed at gunpoint last night.
Deputies headed to the business about 11:40 p.m. after at least twice someone called 911 from there but hung up without speaking, according to the Thurston County Sheriff’s Office.
A dispatcher finally made contact with the employee who reported what occurred, Sgt. Ray Brady said.
“She said she did that because she wasn’t sure if he was going to come back, and she was so scared,” Brady said.
Brady said the the 36-year-old Rochester resident was in a back room when a man wearing dark clothing and a red bandana over his face came inside pointing a handgun toward her. And he aimed it at her back as she retrieved money he demanded, according to Brady.
He then left and headed south toward the parking lot at Key Bank, according to the sheriff’s office. Deputies suspect a vehicle may have been staged there, as that’s where a police dog track ended, according to Brady.
The store and gas station sits at the intersection of U.S. Highway 12 and Old Highway 99 not far from Interstate 5.
Detectives today are working the case, and in contact with Tumwater police who are investigating a similar incident earlier in the evening farther north along the I-5 corridor, Brady said.
A Chevron store was robbed by a male wearing a red bandana over his face just before 8 p.m. at Trosper Road near Little Rock Road, according to police. He fled the store and was picked up by a female in a green Jeep Cherokee, police said.
Tumwater’s subject is described as about 6-feet tall with a medium build, wearing a black hoodie, black baggie pants and blue high-top tennis shoes and as having a dark complexion, according to the Tumwater Police Department.
The Grand Mound clerk thought her robber was a white male adult and said he was wearing dark clothing, and a red or maroon baseball-type cap, Brady said, along with the bandana over his face.
The same store was just robbed in December, by a pony-tailed woman who threatened to shoot a clerk. A 20-year-old Montesano woman was arrested days later in that case.
Brady said the clerk last night did the right things.
“That’s what they teach employees, to cooperate and just be a good witness,” he said.
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CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect the correct time police were called to the robbery in Tumwater.
Tags: By Sharyn L. Decker, news reporter
Most of the human race works hard trying to be productive and contribute to society. And then there are the stealers, perfectly willing to suck up everybody else’s hard labor with no effort of their own–and not much risk. Maybe it’s time to start cutting off hands again. Obviously Christian ethics aren’t working; maybe we need to go back to an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a miserable thieving hand. If they catch this guy, please put me on the jury.
The hand chopping should also apply to Wall Street bandits and CEO’s who are doing the same thing: getting fat off other people’s work.
Thank goodness she was not hurt. It is only money and not worth getting killed for.
Tumwater’s robbery was just before 8PM, not 7.