Posted on 03/19/2022 3:44:53 PM PDT by algore
Criminals have been targeting pot shops and a recent string of violent robberies have employees on edge.
In the most recent case in Covington, a suspect took an employee at Euphorium hostage on Thursday just before 8 p.m. It’s a robbery attempt that ended with the suspect getting shot and killed by another store employee.
“It’s awful for everyone,” said Ryan Evans, the director of operations at Euphorium cannabis stores. “I’ve never seen a situation where the hostage is taken first outside then brought in,” he said.
The King County Sheriff’s Office says the person killed is a man in his mid 20s.
Surveillance video of the incident was captured by cameras at both Euphorium and Rehv Arms Gun Shop next door. The businesses are holding off on sharing the video for now, but showed KIRO7 the clip.
In the video, you see a Euphorium employee getting out of his car. A suspect who appeared to be watching then crossed the parking lot and followed the employee, approaching him from behind. He puts his arm around the employee, then tightens the grip to a chokehold. In that position, the two walk together a short distance to the front door of Euphorium. There is a security guard at the front door.
“Our employee had a gun to his head,” Evans said.
“The perpetrator said he was going to rob the store,” said Lindsey Evans, the general manager of the store.
It was another nearby employee who checks IDs who saw all of this unfold. That’s when he took action. The store says he had a concealed carry and opened fire, shooting the suspect.
“My employee saved multiple lives,” Lindsey Evans said. “Anybody who would put their life out there to protect somebody else is absolutely a hero. I know he’s a family man himself and he’s just a really wonderful man,” she said.
Jim Fuda, the executive director of CrimeStoppers of Puget Sound says robberies have been getting more brazen.
“They have been escalating where victims have been pistol-whipped, guns to their head, put in chokeholds, shot. And so you see it definitely escalating as more and more are occurring,” Fuda said.
Fuda says in this case, things could have turned out much worse.
“It would be very tough to shoot somebody like that and not worry about hitting the victim that was in the chokehold there. So it was lucky all the way around that only the suspect was killed,” Fuda said.
Gun control works
A CBD shop opened up in my two-stoplight town. (Everybody was SO excited when McDonalds got their own stoplight.) A week into operations a guy walked in with a gun and robbed them. While he was shoving the CBD products into a bag the girl, and I mean girl, she looked in her teens, said, “You do understand this isn’t pot or hash oil. Don’t you?” Apparently, he didn’t. He left with the cash in the till and a bag of product.
High times at Seattle High!
in Seattle I would sooner rob a pot shop next to a cop shop than a gun shop.
If this guy had survived he would have made a great city council member.
The place has become a blight on the community and attracts criminals like flies on road kill. I bought auto parts for many years at the NAPA at the other end of the same building. After one problem after another people like me stopped going to the NAPA and it went out of business. If you took your eye off your vehicle for more than a minute you were asking for trouble, not to mention the people begging for money, and the skunk like odor that permeated everything in the area.
https://goo.gl/maps/JXhJmTLXkiQPxKVN7
Read it as “pet shop.” Glad no critters were harmed.
Google Maps shows that the store is in the Highpointe area!
So does staying away from para-criminal enterprises.
I feel pretty good about it, actually.
Say, is that stray blunt I see?
The link in fireman15’s #6 correctly shows the Covington (Southeast King County) location.
Not really... Someone's a little ignorant about hemp oil.
Someone is. “Hemp oil” can refer to either cannibis sativa oil or thst from the seeds from the hemp plant, which contain no THC.
Hemp oil is claimed to be for pain relief as an ointment or other topical. It contains no THC at all, none. It's just snake oil as far as I'm concerned with only dubious medicinal value.
If only they would legalize the stuff so the crime element would go away.
Sounds like a great opportunity for cops to plant some bait vehicles and set up other stings, and thereby easily, maybe almost effortlessly, take a bunch of bad actors out of society. Too bad, though, that that doesn’t seem to be what cops are actually for in this day and age.
Wait, is that SOMEONE NOT WEARING A MASK OVER THERE?
I don’t get it. The article says pot shop. Nothing about hemp oil.
Here in Phx the pot shops sell pot. I’m thinking that is what they are selling in Seattle in a store referred to as a pot shop.
I assume the concealed carry employee was well trained in handling his gun.
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