Local & State Headlines

Police searching for robbery suspect

• Police are looking for a man who robbed a northwest Albany shoe store Monday night.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — Albany police were looking Tuesday for a man who dropped from the ceiling of a local shoe store to bash a security guard on the back of his head before stealing about $7,000 in cash, police said.

Security guard Freddie Green, 26, told police a man dropped from the ceiling of the men’s rest room of the Dawson Road Shoe Station about 9:45 p.m. Monday and hit him in the back of the head with a shotgun.

The man then forced him into the manager’s office where the manager was counting money, Green said.

Manager Ta’Tanisha Turner told police the black man was between 5-foot-11-inches and 6-foot-2-inches and weighing about 250 pounds. He wore a black ski mask during the robbery, she said.

Turner said all the store’s doors had been locked and she was in the office, which was locked from the inside, when she heard a crash and Green call her name, according to a police report.

Turner told police she thought Green had fallen and opened the door to find him on the floor with a shotgun-wielding bandit pointing the weapon at her.

The man told her not to look at him, then made her put all the money from the safe, about $7,000, into a bag he was holding before taking Turner’s store keys and cell phone, according to the report.

After getting the safe’s money, the manager and the security guard were tied up, according to the report. The bandit left the store through the front door, the report states.

The victims were able to untie themselves, police said, and Green lifted a ceiling tile from the office to climb into the hallway to see if the man was gone, the report states.

Police spokeswoman Phyllis Banks-Whitley said police were developing suspects Tuesday night. Anyone with information about the crime can call (229) 436-TIPS to leave an anonymous tip, she said.

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