Employees assaulted during robbery attempt

By: Donna Swicegood | Mooresville Tribune
Published: November 11, 2009

Employees at a west Statesville restaurant and a department store were assaulted during robbery attempts Tuesday night.

An employee of the Subway restaurant on Taylorsville Highway was on a lunch break around 6 p.m. Tuesday when a man walked up and grabbed her, pulling her toward the cash register, said Statesville Police Department Chief Tom Anderson.

The employee was talking with her brother at the time and she asked him to call police, which he did.

Anderson said the robber struck the woman in the face with a handgun and threatened to kill her, and ran off before getting any money.

About 90 minutes later, a lone suspect walked into the Family Dollar on West Front Street and demanded that the clerk open the safe, Anderson said. He struck the clerk in the head with a handgun, and grabbed her shirt, Anderson said. He took her to the back of the store to open the safe.

After getting cash, he fled the store.

Anderson said the two cases look as if they are related. The suspect in the Subway robbery was described as a black male, wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt and a pink bandanna covering his face.

In the second robbery, the suspect was wearing a grayish blue fleece hooded sweatshirt and black sweat pants with a gray stripe down the leg. He was wearing a black winter cap pulled down to his eyebrows and a light red bandanna across his face.

This is the third time the Family Dollar has been robbed in recent weeks.

Anderson said the suspect description in the previous two robberies at Family Dollar is not similar to the one from Tuesday.

Anyone with information on these robberies can call the SPD at (704) 878-3406.