In a brazen early-morning convenience store heist Tuesday, a couple of smoky bandits rammed a truck into a Pic-n-Go convenience store, leaving behind a shattered mess of broken glass and missing cigarettes.
Around 4 a.m. Tuesday, the suspects repeatedly rammed a Chevrolet Silverado into the front door of the store at 2223 W. Markham St. between the Arkansas School for the Deaf and the state Capitol. The thieves, one male and one female, went behind the counter, grabbed a box and filled it with individual packs of Newport cigarettes, according to a police report.
The store’s video camera captured the moment when a late 1990s or early 2000s model dark green Silverado backed up and rammed into the front door until the door “caved in,” according to the report. The male suspect wore gloves, but the female suspect did not and detectives later found two latent fingerprints in front of the cash register.
The report said store staff were unable to immediately estimate how many cigarette packs were stolen.
Athar Anjum, who has worked at the store for about three years, told the Arkansas Times the damage to the store was greater than the value of the products that were stolen. The damage was great enough that the store will make a claim with its insurance company, he said. The store has been broken into five times in its location on Markham, he said.
Little Rock crime stats show burglaries and breaking-and-entering crimes are up 5% year-to-date over last year, but are even in the patrol division that covers the downtown area, including the Pic-n-Go store.
The store was open this afternoon with boards covering some windows, a vastly different scene than nearby resident Tanya Hollifield captured in a Facebook post yesterday: