Posted on 08/31/2002 9:15:32 AM PDT by DCBryan1
Police watched store robbery, court files say
BY JIM BROOKS
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
North Little Rock police knew hours ahead of time that a convicted robber and kidnapper planned to hold up a convenience store Feb. 8 and watched as the robbery occurred, court records reveal.
But police never told the store clerk and waited until the armed man left the business before attempting to arrest him, the files show.
Investigators were tipped off about the robbery of the E-Z Mart at 3600 MacArthur Drive by a confidential informant who dropped the robber off a short distance from the store while police staked out the business. Police knew the informant would be driving the robber to the store, the records say.
Police confronted Willie Roy Lowery, 32, as he walked from the store, but Lowery bolted and hid for three hours in a nearby drainage ditch before he was arrested.
The clerk, Aaron Black, was not injured in the robbery. Black declined a request for an interview.
Black’s mother, who declined to give her name, said her son told her that police explained their timely presence at the convenience store by saying they were in the area investigating reports of cars being broken into at a nearby business. (Police lying to civilians!?> Say it ain't so!)
"It sounds like they [police] put my son’s life in danger," she said when told about the court filing. (No Mam, They DID put your son's life in danger.)
North Little Rock Police Chief Danny Bradley said that, after speaking with prosecutors handling the case, he would not release details or answer specific questions about the incident until a forthcoming trial is concluded. But the chief said police have to consider multiple factors in determining the safest way to apprehend a suspect.
"A lot of times, you make the decision to allow the person to leave before trying to make an apprehension," he said. "I can say that as a matter of policy... the safety of the public is our primary concern."
Efforts to reach criminal justice experts at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, as well as at the Criminal Justice Institute in Little Rock, were unsuccessful.
The circumstances surrounding the robbery emerged in court documents filed by prosecutors who were attempting to keep the identity of the informant a secret from Lowery’s defense attorney.
The informant issue surfaced during a July 24 jury trial that had to be rescheduled. Pulaski County Circuit Judge John Langston set an Aug. 12 hearing on defense attorney Herb Wright’s motion to force the state to name the informant. Four days later, Langston ruled in favor of the defense.
In a response to the defense motion, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Melanie Martin outlined the testimony expected at Lowery’s coming trial: "A confidential informant gave the officers a tip on the evening of Feb. 7 that the defendant would be robbing the store sometime that evening," Martin wrote. "This led to the store being surrounded by officers at the time of the offense.
"The facts would reveal that this confidential informant dropped the defendant off approximately fifty yards from the store and then drove off. The confidential informant was not detained by the police, nor was he arrested and charged with being an accomplice."
Lowery was on parole at the time of the robbery. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison in June 1987 after being convicted of aggravated robbery, felony theft and kidnapping, but was paroled less than 11 years later. In September 1998, he was returned to prison after his parole was revoked, but he again was released on parole in July 2001. After his arrest in the E-Z Mart robbery, Lowery was returned to prison. His trial date on aggravated-robbery and theft charges is set for Sept. 10 in Langston’s court.
A trial on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm is set for Oct. 31 in the same court.
The robbery occurred about 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 8 and was captured on the store’s video cameras.
A police report in the case said a robber entered the store wearing a hood over his head, threatened Black with a handgun and demanded money. The robber took a packing knife from Black and forced him to walk from the store at gunpoint, court records reveal.
"After exiting the store with the clerk, the defendant [Lowery ] was surrounded by officers and told to stop," Martin wrote in the court document. "He fled from the police, and during the pursuit dropped the money, cigarettes and his jacket."
North Little Rock police arrested Lowery several hours later after he emerged from a drainage culvert near the convenience store. Lowery did not have a gun when he was arrested, but he was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm based on his statement to detectives.
Martin and Wright declined to speak about the impending case.
Kim Fowler, a spokesman for E-Z Mart corporate offices in Texarkana, Texas, said the company works closely with law enforcement officials in every community.
"We trust that they know what they’re doing," she said. "We have faith in their ability to serve and protect."UN FREAKING BELIVABLE!
Dale Sides, director of loss prevention for the company, said he knows of several situations in which police staked out a robbery without notifying the clerk.
"This is really not uncommon," he said. "In fact, clerks are probably better off not knowing."
Sides said if a clerk is aware of an impending robbery and knows police are watching, he might act nervously or impulsively and put himself in more danger.
"He might have false hope knowing that officers are just outside and might do something to endanger himself," Sides said. "Our No. 1 priority is the safety of our employees."
North Little Rock Alderman Tony Vestal declined to comment on the police’s handling of the robbery.
"I knew that the robbery occurred, but I didn’t know about the exact circumstances," said Vestal, who represents the ward in which the robbery occurred.
"Without having all the information, I wouldn’t want to make a judgment one way or the other on how the police handled it."
So now you're asking sweetliberty the same question you complained about?
" sentenced to 35 years in prison but was paroled less than 11 years later " . Is this what you mean by providing the public ? Ok .. I take it because you trust law enforcement so much you would not have minded at all if you were the Arkansas clerk ?
I just thought that I would ask you 1 more time .
Is smoking "wacky tobacky" a felony where you live? Hey, I asked a question, and you are obviously having some major guilt trip over it. Lighten up...
I'm opposed to your stand that the NA police did the right thing. They left the clerk in harms way and should be held accountable.
HCI = Handgun Control Inc (now known at Brady Campaign to Prevent Handgun Violence), VPC = Violence Policy Center...both extreemly anti-gun, anti-self defense, anti-freedom, and anti-American. Your comment in 67 parrots their policies...
good luck...
You call that an accusation? I call it a rhetorical question.
It doesn't bring the dead back to life does it? I posted the info in relation to your comments as to how understaffed the department was and couldn't find the time to do what was necessary in this case. Additionally, your comments as to how an officer would have been prosecuted for murder if the perp had been shot while in commision of a robbery are in complete, total, and absolute conflict with reality, as NONE of those who murdered these innocent people have been prosecuted for ANYTHING, and are even still on the force.
Finally, your claims of expertise in the area of SWAT police work begged for the response I gave you, as your contentions are highly irrational. It is apparent that people like you DO handle these matters, as only the innocent should fear the SWAT teams these days...
How many SWAT teams sat outside Columbine while kids and teachers were being shot? How many hours went by before they went in, as they feared for their lives and didn't want to go in before all the shooting stopped?
Yeah, they can bust into a house full of innocent people at 4AM with their ninja suits and MP5 sub-machine guns, yet they turn tail and hide when there is REAL danger....
And just to let you know I filed a complaint...
Whoopy do. Does that give you certain feeling of "power"?
I wonder if you would be so blase about it if the clerk in question were your son. My daughter at one point took a second job as a clerk in a convenience store. I hated it. It wasn't that long before or far away that 2 young women clerks had been shot and killed in the commission of a robbery in a store of the same chain. In my opinion, it was a wreckless move by the police and I would have had no sympathy whatsoever for them had this episode resulted in the death of the clerk. The best I can do as it is is to give them the benefit of the doubt based on the possibility that perhaps they weren't smart enough to come up with a better plan. People who think that because they're cops they can do no wrong and their judgement shouldn't be questioned scare me. It is a pretty well-known fact that cops are not hired based on their high IQ's. I don't mean that as a put down. I am in support of cops who are decent people trying to do a good job of protecting citizens, but sadly, I think that the police force tends to attract a lot of the types that have a different agenda or an ax to grind and seek an outlet that empowers them to act on it.
I don't call placing a civilian into a situation where an armed robber is expected to strike "protecting the public". I'd say that it is sheer luck that the perp didn't blow away the clerk and that they were able to apprehend him after the robbery, as they didn't find him until several hours afterwards. Two qualified detectives could have handled this, with one making the switch with the clerk and the other present outside the store in wait for the perp to leave. The arrest would have been handled by the detective outside the store with the "clerk" providing backup.
Now that is with only TWO officers, whereas it is apparent from your comments that they had a SWAT team waiting OUTSIDE the store. I find this sloppy, cowardly, and inept..
And exactly what is THAT supposed to mean?
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