LITTLE ROCK — The shooting of a northwest Little Rock conveniencestore clerk during an attempted robbery early Tuesday was “unprovoked,” police said.
It wasn’t until after Cory Brown was shot twice, once in the back while trying to flee from the armed robber, that the thief tried stealing money from the 11724 Rainwood Road E-Z Mart, according to Little Rock Police Department spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis.
Brown’s injuries were not life-threatening, police said. The Tuesday morning shooting adds to a three-year climb in robberies, according to Little Rock department statistics.
While up-to-date departmental figures weren’t available, robberies rose more than 15 percent through May compared with the same time period last year.
Of the 287 robberies reported to police through May 31, 109 were business robberies, an 18.5 percent increase from the 92 through the end of May last year.
Robberies of individuals rose from 156 to 178 in the same time period.
The gains aren’t limited to the first five months of this year. After bottoming out at 684 total robberies in 2009, police saw robberies rise by 9.9 percent to 752 in 2010 and rise another 18.75 percent, to 893, in 2011.
If robberies continue in the city at this rate, investigators will handle an estimated 1,027 robberies by year’s end, the highest number since the 1,084 robberies in 2007.
Davis said the overall rise hasn’t gone unnoticed by investigators or the command staff.
“[Robbery detectives] are aware of the heightened numbers,” Davis said. “But as far as undercover officers ... operations ... I can’t release that information at this point.”
The robbery was the third at the Rainwood Road store this year, according to police records, which say that the store was robbed by a gunman in the early morning hours on April 6 and May 23.
In the latest robbery, Brown was working a late shift early Tuesday when a man walked into the convenience store about 1:10 a.m. and asked to look at work applications.
According to police reports, the robber flipped through the pages and then whipped out a handgun, stuck it in Brown’s face and pulled the trigger.
The shot was just a “graze,”according to Davis, who said Brown tried to run from the gunman after the first shot and was shot again - in the back.
After he shot Brown, the gunman, described as a 5-foot-5 black man in his late teens to early 20s, wearing a black shirt, black shorts, a chain necklace and earrings, went around the counter and tried unsuccessfully to open the register and then ran from the store in a southwest direction.
Brown was taken to Baptist Health Medical Center.
Davis said it was unclear whether the gunman entered the store specifically to shoot Brown rather than rob the business and then robbed the store as an afterthought.
“It’s odd that he’d shoot the clerk before making an attempt to get the money,” Davis said. “Even after [Brown] leaves, his attention is on the clerk.”
Brown fled to a nearby business at 1801 Green Mountain Drive and pounded on the door for help.
The door was locked, reports said, because an employee had noticed a “suspicious” young man lingering outside roughly 10 minutes before Brown was shot.
Witnesses’ descriptions of the gunman and the man waiting outside the business matched, police said.
Davis said the store’s surveillance cameras captured some good images of the robber, but detectives had not identified him yet.
The spokesman said it was too early to tell if Brown’s case was connected to any other recent robberies, but she said detectives will compare notes over Tuesday’s shooting and other robberies.
On Sept. 22, an employee at a North Little Rock E-Z Mart was shot and killed by one of three men who tried to rob that establishment.
Jacobi Robinson, 20, Davion Howard, 19, and Maclin Rogers, 20, were all arrested within a week of the shooting of 29-year-old clerk Akiya Egeston and were charged with capital murder as well as aggravated robbery in the woman’s death.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 10/17/2012