Meth-fueled robber told police he gave cash from Tacoma heist to the homeless, charges allege
The 28-year-old’s reason for holding up a Tacoma convenience store was pure, as he described it.
He gave the money to the homeless, he allegedly told police.
Prosecutors charged him Monday with first-degree robbery, making a false or misleading statement to a public servant and unlawful carrying of a weapon apparently capable of producing bodily harm.
Charging papers give this account:
The man appeared to be on methamphetamine when he walked into the store at East 72nd Street and Portland Avenue about 1:45 a.m. Sunday .
He implied he had a gun and yelled for the clerk to give him all the $20 bills.
“When the clerk said he didn’t have any twenties, the defendant yelled, ‘Don’t (expletive) with with me (expletive)!’” the declaration for determination of probable cause says.
The clerk gave him about $70 in $10 and $5 bills, and the suspect fled.
He’s a regular customer at the store and is regularly high on methamphetamine, police learned.
They found him later hiding in a car wash across the street from a restaurant that he was accused of pointing a gun at.
There was a black pellet gun nearby.
He gave officers different last names and said he found a jacket near the restaurant with a gun in the pocket and that “he ran across the street to ask someone for a cigarette and the next thing he knew he heard sirens,” the probable cause statement says.
Asked about the convenience store robbery, he ultimately said that the clerk was a friend and had given him money to give to homeless people. The clerk was his half brother, he said, though he didn’t know the clerk’s name.
“... the defendant later explained the clerk was a ‘friend’ and had told the defendant to rob the store while the clerk was working,” the probable cause statement says.
He said he got about $80 and that he gave it to the homeless.
Police booked him into the Pierce County Jail.
