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North Little Rock, AR cops stand by and watch as convenience store is robbed!
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ^ | 31 AUG 02 | BY JIM BROOKS

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."


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; US: Arkansas
KEYWORDS: crime; donutwatch; felon; police; robbery; selfdefense
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To: A CA Guy
I can't believe your post is true at all... Most banks have civilian security guards and would prevent anyone with a shotgun coming into a bank... Second, most law enforcement will respond within minutes to a call of a crime in progress such as yours... What city and law enforcement agency in CA was this?
41 posted on 08/31/2002 11:42:41 AM PDT by marajade
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To: marajade
Um, from my reading of the article they were heavily armed...

Um, I was talking about the clerk. They allowed an unarmed clerk to deal with an armed bandit, yet THEY feel the need to wear body armor and carry sub-machine guns whenever they perform a drug bust. And yes, more than likely they were also heavily armed while they were waiting for the perp to rob the store and exit.

42 posted on 08/31/2002 11:45:26 AM PDT by FormerLurker
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To: FormerLurker
"They allowed an unarmed clerk to deal with an armed bandit ..."

Okay, maybe they thought it better not to because it might escalate if both victim and suspect had guns...
43 posted on 08/31/2002 11:47:01 AM PDT by marajade
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To: SouthernFreebird
Knowing who he was , where he was , and having watched him it adds up to allowing him to rest . There is no excuse for any of this with the possible exception of making the arrest immediatly after the fact .

" He had a gun " .. That's a fine excuse .

44 posted on 08/31/2002 11:48:13 AM PDT by Ben Bolt
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To: marajade
This was in Brea California in the 80s. The main bank was under cionstruction and they had a trailer bank going.
It was next to where a freeway onram was, so that makes it a great choice for crime.
Police showed up half our later.
Neighbor hood is mostly white at that time and these were three blacks dressed in gang garb.
At the time I was a kid woring at a gas station and saw all this, reported it to 911.

4 hours later there was a black patron putting gas in his car at the station I worked out. Was dressed in a nice dress shirt.
Brea cop gets out of car with shot gun. From behind they put the gun towards this guysneck and asked for permission to see his liscence. HE SAID OK!

Happened, and some of it shook me up surrounding it all.
45 posted on 08/31/2002 11:49:53 AM PDT by A CA Guy
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To: marajade
If the cops new he was going to rob the store, then they should have arrested him for possesion of a deadly weapon!
46 posted on 08/31/2002 11:50:07 AM PDT by NYTexan
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To: RossA
...didn't the cops have probable cause to stop this guy from the information given them from their CI?

A stop for questioning and pat-down would have found a fire-arm and BAM!, back to jail for felon in possession of a fire-arm!!

Sounds like a better idea than putting the store clerks life in danger, don't you think?

47 posted on 08/31/2002 11:50:26 AM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: A CA Guy
take the i out of the other attempt at spelling construction
48 posted on 08/31/2002 11:50:39 AM PDT by A CA Guy
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To: marajade
Okay, maybe they thought it better not to because it might escalate if both victim and suspect had guns...

Haven't you read enough of this thread to understand that the best possible thing (and only sensible thing) they could have done would have been to replace the clerk with an armed undercover cop? Why subject a civilian to such an ordeal if he or she could have been kept out of harms way? Is that what you consider to be great police work, when the most dangerous part of a stakeout is manned by a unarmed civilian?

49 posted on 08/31/2002 11:51:26 AM PDT by FormerLurker
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To: A CA Guy
onram is on ramp, sorry, terrible hitting the correct keys today.
50 posted on 08/31/2002 11:51:28 AM PDT by A CA Guy
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To: A CA Guy
"Police showed up half our later."

So your post about the police not responding within minutes was inaccurate because the call to the police to reported wasn't made until probably after the suspects had left. Is that correct?
51 posted on 08/31/2002 11:51:53 AM PDT by marajade
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To: A CA Guy
Neighbor hood is neighborhood, gee, I guess I should go back to bed and pull the cover over my head before I hurt myself the way I'm typing today! LOL
52 posted on 08/31/2002 11:52:47 AM PDT by A CA Guy
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To: NYTexan
Well robbery carries a much longer sentence then just possession of a weapon... The way the police responded they got him for armed robbery and possession of a weapon...
53 posted on 08/31/2002 11:53:09 AM PDT by marajade
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To: TexasCajun
A stop for questioning and pat-down would have found a fire-arm and BAM!, back to jail for felon in possession of a fire-arm!!

That is another fact missed by many so far. They COULD have, and probably SHOULD have gone about it that way, IF they knew the identity of the perp beforehand..

54 posted on 08/31/2002 11:53:38 AM PDT by FormerLurker
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To: marajade
"Um, you can't arrest someone for something they haven't done... "

Well... You don't live in Houston, Texas!!

55 posted on 08/31/2002 11:53:44 AM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: FormerLurker
And if they put an unarmed police officer in there as a clerk do you think the prosecution would be successful getting a conviction?
56 posted on 08/31/2002 11:54:39 AM PDT by marajade
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To: marajade
No, I reported it to 911 as I saw it and they did not arrive till much later.
This is a wealthy town and I was surprised, but I guess their thinking was "let them rob and get away rather than kill everyine inside" - but that is only my guess.
57 posted on 08/31/2002 11:55:02 AM PDT by A CA Guy
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To: marajade
No he would not.

He was a felon on parole and had a gun. He would have gone straight to jail, parole revoked, and gotten additional time on a weapons charge.

He would have been imprisoned.
58 posted on 08/31/2002 11:55:44 AM PDT by SarahW
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To: A CA Guy
"No, I reported it to 911 ..."

While it was in progress? And it took the police a half hour to respond? If that truly the case, which I completely doubt, you need a new police chief and police force...
59 posted on 08/31/2002 11:56:56 AM PDT by marajade
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To: RJL
"Why didn't they substitute an armed officer in a bullet proof vest for the clerk?"

That just makes WAY too much sense.

60 posted on 08/31/2002 11:57:02 AM PDT by sweetliberty
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