Indiana robbers may be targeting St. Louis pharmacies

fox2now.com/2016/12/19/indiana-robbers-may-be-targeting-st-louis-pharmacies/

Indiana has been NUMBER ONE for several years in a row for pharmacy robberies… both in total number of robberies and the number of robberies per 100,000 population. A year or so ago.. the major chain pharmacies in the Indianapolis/Marion County market installed timed safes in their stores.. where there is a variable time between the time that the Pharmacist enters the combination to open the safe and when the safe will actually open.  As those with three brain cells connected could have expected… the pharmacy robbers have move out to robbing pharmacies outside of the Indianapolis area.

ST. LOUIS (KTVI) – Criminals from Indiana may be heading to Missouri in search of for a certain pharmaceutical; and they think St. Louis is an easier target than Indianapolis.

Word began spreading among independent pharmacies last week that they could be targets. Rick Williams of Ladue and Millbrook pharmacies said pharmacy owners began warning colleagues about people who appeared to be casing stores. Two of them were robbed of oxycodone.

“It has a huge street value, that’s the main reason,” Williams said. “They know they can get a lot of money for it and that’s probably the most popular drug of choice for the drug abusers.”

Last Monday, two armed men stormed Colonial Village pharmacy in Webster Groves. The owner told said he’d heard about a recent Crestwood pharmacy robbery and two men casing other businesses. Then two men stormed his establishment with guns drawn.

Two days later, it was onto another pharmacy; this time in south city at Keller Apothecary. The employees had a game plan. The suspects left without incident and St. Louis police responded quickly and arrested two men.

According to the probable cause statement, the two men were from Indianapolis. One of them reportedly carried a semi-automatic pistol and narcotics. The suspects were identified as 20-year-old Daron Petty and 19-year-old Trei Day.

The probable cause statement also links them to the Webster Groves robbery.

Why were they coming here from Indiana? According to the DEA, Indiana leads the country in pharmacy robberies. Now Indiana is taking action, such as coordinating task forces to crack down. Robbers may think St. Louis is not paying attention.

These local pharmacies hope to prove otherwise.

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