Attempted armed robbery reported at Food Mart

According to the incident report, the store clerk on duty around 5:40 a.m. told Deputy Mark Jerome that she was doing paperwork in the store office when she received a phone call asking her if she was the one who drove the blue car in the parking lot. When she replied she was, the caller, who she said sounded like a black male, allegedly told her that “she better take the money bag outside and throw it by the restaurant dumpster.” He added that he “had a friend watching her with a gun and that he would shoot her if she did not do what he said.” He then proceeded to tell her to “not put the phone down and hurry up and bring the money bag outside by the dumpster.”

As she threw the money by the dumpster, she reportedly told a man walking into the restaurant that she had been robbed and asked him to call police. The man reportedly told Deputy Jerome that he saw a man with a white shirt getting into a blue Toyota in the parking lot next door and ran after it to get the tag number, but the car sped off down Cody Fowler Road toward Neese Commerce Road. He also stated he thought he had seen the vehicle before and told the deputy the name of the man who drives a car like it.

According to Sheriff Kip Thomas, the deputy found the bank bag and cash still laying by the dumpster where the clerk reportedly left it.