Southwick Police K-9 Officer Thomas Krutka and his K-9 partner Jax work the area near ECI Corporation on Mainline Drive in Westfield where the armed suspect was seen crossing Friday.The armed man robbed a Rite-Aid store on East Silver Street and fled on foot. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – A disguised man armed with a handgun made off with an undetermined amount of narcotics after he robbed the pharmacy in the Rite Aid store Friday morning.
Police responded to a 10:37 a.m. report of the armed robbery and Officer Joseph Maxton was the first officer to arrive at the East Silver Street store.
He reports that he was directed to the store’s pharmacy where he found the employees to be visibly upset.
The pharmacist said that the pharmacy had been robbed of narcotics by a man who repeatedly said he had a gun and showed the four employees working in the pharmacy a handgun in the waistband of his red basketball style shorts.
A Rite Aid employee was posted outside the East Main Street store Friday morning to divert customers from the store which was closed for a time after an armed robber stole narcotics from the store’s pharmacy. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
A pharmacy technician said that she had seen a man in the pharmacy area who looked like a person seen in security videos from other stores of the chain which had been robbed.
Westfield police question a man near Noble and East Main Street Friday after a Rite-Aid store was robbed. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
Moments later, the man jumped over the counter and showed her the gun in his waistband, keeping his hand on the gun as he informed her that the store was being robbed.
The woman alerted her colleagues and the suspect demanded “oxycodones” while repeatedly stating that he had a gun. Although several witnesses said he kept his hand on the gun, none said that he ever fully removed it from his waistband.
The pharmacist told police that he was afraid that the man would shoot and immediately went to the safe where the narcotics are kept and opened it.
The man produced a plastic Rite Aid bag and demanded that the pharmacist put the narcotics in it but soon started grabbing pill bottles from the safe himself and putting them in the bag.
He then jumped back over the counter and fled from the store.
Maxton reports that a customer entering the store as the man ran out said that he seemed strange to her so she followed him for a short distance, seeing the man run toward the nearby railway embankment.
A Massachusetts State Police helicopter checks the area in back of the Westfield Shops where an armed man was last known to be after he robbed a Rite-Aid store Friday. (Photo by Frederick Gore)
Police report that the suspect is a dark skinned man who was wearing what appeared to be a shiny, shoulder length black wig. A police news release puts his height between 5 feet ten inches and six feet tall but a witness indicated that he was shorter, perhaps about 5 foot seven inches, and slender.
One witness said that he had a pronounced foreign accent while another said she did not discern an accent.
Police searching the area were assisted by the Southwick K-9 team, Officer Tom Krutka and “Jax”.
Officer Steve Carrington worked with the team and reports Jax discovered a track which led south but was lost at the fence surrounding the Columbia Manufacturing Company.
A short time later Officer David Racicot, working an off-duty detail, reported that a black man with long hair, wearing clothing different than the suspect was reported to be wearing, was seen emerging from a wooded area near Mainline Drive.
Krutka and Jax, reinforced by a State Police K-9 team, again picked up the scent but it did not lead to a suspect.
Police established a cordon around the area where the man might be and a State Police helicopter crew conducted an aerial search without positive results.
In a news release issued Friday afternoon, Capt. Michael McCabe said “We believe that this person is responsible for several other similar robberies involving Rite Aide (sic) stores in Hampden County and northern Connecticut.”
He asks that anybody with knowledge of the crime or the suspect call the city police at 562-5411 or Det. Anthony Tsatsos, the lead detective investigating the case, at 572-6400.
