WESTFIELD – City officers investigating a reported robbery at knifepoint found that the incident was actually a ‘grab and go’ larceny which occurred during an illegal commercial transaction – two young men the “victim” thought were customers fled with the marijuana he thought he was going to sell them.
A Russell Road resident came to the police station at 7:55 p.m. Wednesday and told Officer Michael Csekovsky that he had been robbed by new friends.
The man told Csekovsky that two young men he said he had met recently sent him a text message asking for a ride and he agreed to pick them up at the Munger Hill School parking lot.
The 19-year-old man said that he first picked up his 15-year-old girlfriend and then met his two new friends, who he identified by name, at the school.
He said that after they got into the back seat, one of them pricked the back of his neck with a knife and he surrendered his wallet – which contained his driver’s license, his food stamp card and $300 in cash – and the two robbers fled into the woods.
Det. Brian Freeman had been interviewing the victim’s girlfriend and, after the two officers compared notes, Csekovsky returned to the putative victim and told him that his account conflicted with his girlfriend’s story.
The man then told Csekovsky that he had actually gone to the parking lot to buy marijuana from his new friends but again changed his story when Csekovsky told him that there were still discrepancies between his story and the girl’s account.
Finally, the man told Csekovsky that he would tell the truth and said that he had gone to meet the two young met to sell them marijuana.
He said that no robbery had really occurred and said that he had called police because “he had been swindled out of a $10 bag of weed.”
The man told Csekovsky that what actually had transpired was that, when he handed the bag of marijuana to his customers, they exited his car and ran into the woods.
The “victim” told Csekovsky that, upon reflection, he had decided not to pursue criminal charges against the two thieves.
