Introduction
The two robbery incidents discussed in this paper are recent and occurred within twenty-four hours of each other. The first incident is a gas station robbery which is part of a spree of similar robberies of gas stations and convenient stores. The latest incident occurred at Neenah in Winnebago County. The robber used a handgun to intimidate the gas station attender and wore a black ski mask. He was of medium build and a member of the African American community. The case is still open with police setting up a hotline for the public to reach them with tips.
This is a commercial robbery and commissioned by a professional robber. The perpetrator plans his robberies well and never stays at any establishment more than four minutes. He operates in a particular neighborhood indicating his intrinsic knowledge of the area. He is likely to be a resident of the same neighborhood or at some time, he held a job which required him to work from the same area. He could be a former gas station or convenient store employee and even a victim of robbery at some stage. This observation finds is basis on the perpetrator’s ability to attack the stores or gas stations at a particular time when they have significant quantity of cash. He probably is watching the police investigation closely and even at some stage, talk to the investigators of the case. He is not firing any shots until now which is a good sign (Safran, 2016).
The second robbery incident is an attack on a pizza delivery truck where a couple of sixteen-year-olds attacked and stole the cash in the van. This is a closed case although it did occur after the Neenah gas station robbery. This pizza delivery robbery occurred at Bear in New Castle County. The victim, a nineteen-year-old, attempted to deliver a house which was vacant. Around this time, the suspects approached him with a handgun. They wore ski masks and they proceeded to rob him of all the cash. The victim called the police after the perpetrators left the scene.
This incident is a vehicular robbery involving a pizza delivery truck/van. Despite the suspects attempting to disguise themselves, the victim provided a good description of the duo to the police. The suspects belong to the Sparrow Run apartments. The police obtained a search warrant for one of the suspects’ residences at 100 Block of Auckland Drive. The search revealed the cash, ski masks, and the handgun used in the commissioning of the crime. These perpetrators are juvenile offenders with no professional experience. The idea of the robbery plan probably conceived by some television show or movie. While they covered up their faces, they were still wearing the same clothes and hanging out together when police picked them up for questioning. The entire exercise was either a desire to seek thrill or a practice run for something bigger in the future. Both suspects released on bail will probably face charges in the Juvenile Justice system (Parra, 2016).
The comparison of the two robberies is interesting since both crimes occupy the absolute extremes in the profession. The gas station robbery was a clinical display of how to pull of the perfect crime. The pizza delivery robbery portrays a picture of the perpetrators considering their modus operandi (MO). The MO of the gas station robbery is a swift action crime where the shock overwhelms the victim and finds it difficult to describe the perpetrator. If not for the security cameras, the police would have no proper description at all. He is still at large and if not apprehended quickly, he could stop operating in the neighborhood in an attempt to send his case into the cold storage.
The MO of the pizza delivery van was embellishment of a television show. Although it is clever on part of the suspects before the crime, they made several mistakes after the crime which led to their immediate arrest. They also spent too much time with the victim and probably dramatized excessively. This behavior put the victim at relative ease and enabled him to come up with an excellent description of his attackers. In addition, they were wearing the same outfits and their description recognized by a local police officer patrolling the Sparrow Run apartments at the time. This indicates their familiarity with the local police. All these factors lead to the conclusion that this vehicular robbery had its fate sealed even before the events in the crime began to unfold.
References
Lyman, M. D. (2013). Criminal Investigation. Pearsons. Upper Saddle River: NJ. Pp. 325-338.
Parra, E. (2016). Two teens charged with armed pizza delivery robbery. Retrieved from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/crime/2016/06/17/two-teens-charged-armed-pizza-delivery-robbery/86031764/
Safran, E. (2016). Neenah Citgo robbed; seventh to hit region. Retrieved from: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/local/2016/06/16/neenah-citgo-robbed-seventh-hit-region/85973152/
