*NEWS*OFFICE DEPOT ROBBED BY ARMED MAN

[Anonymous]

Local Office Depot Robbed By Armed Man
(calif)
SCENE OF ROBBERY – Office Depot on Foothill Blvd. in La Crescenta was the scene of an armed robbery Tuesday night. An indisclosed sum was taken by the suspect, a man who made his escape after jumping a nearby fence. Two employees reported a gun was used during the crime.
Tuesday night as customers were shopping at Office Depot on Foothill Boulevard a man dressed in a dark colored hooded sweatshirt, wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun walked up to cashier Ricky Ori and told him to empty his cash drawer into a black bag.
“Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man with a ski mask and a gun at point blank range pointed at me,” Ori said.
At the time Ori was waiting on a woman and her children who ran out of the back of the store, he said. Ori explained to the suspect that he was unable to open the drawer without the manager’s help.
“I said, ‘Sir I can’t open this register,” Ori recalled.
The store’s assistant manager, Sabrina Mendoza, walked up to Ori at the time the robbery was taking place. The suspect handed her the bag and repeated his request.
“He told me to hurry up,” Mendoza said. With the system in place at Office Depot, the drawer can only be opened after voiding everything out and opening it with a key. The man became impatient as Mendoza went through this process, she said.
Mendoza put an undisclosed amount of money into the bag and the man ran out of the store. Eye witnesses saw him run to the east of the store and jump a fence. One La Crescenta man, who asked not to be identified, said he saw the man run out of the store, jump a small fence and stumble several times in his attempt to get away.
In the meantime, store officials placed a call to law enforcement. “I ran straight to the phone and called 911,” Mendoza said
Sheriff’s deputies arrived but the man had already made his escape.
This was the first time Mendoza had ever been the victim of robbery.”I am just trying not to cry,” Mendoza said of the experience.
Ori was also shaken by his encounter with the armed masked man. “I just stayed facing straight ahead,” Ori said as the man left the building. Deputies are still investigating the robbery.

[Author]

February 28, 2006 at 11:38 AM