Sticking up a Drug Store in the Robber’s Own Words
It wasn't a real gun. It was a pellet gun, a look-alike nine millimeter. It looked exactly like a real gun. You really couldn't tell. I hit him in the ribs. Then he knew it was for real. He goes, “Okay, okay, okay.” I go, “Get on the floor. Get on the floor.” So he got on the floor.
I usually just squat down, like to get behind the counters, but at that time I just didn't care. Things weren't going right. I wanted to hurry up and get out of there. That was my first thought--let's hurry this up. Just give me the drugs so I can get the hell out of here.
I saw this lady over by the cash register. There were people who started walking away. They were cashing their checks. They started walking away. I didn't even care about those people walking away. The lady in the front, she walked out the door.
I had one thing on my mind--getting those drugs. That was it. I just wanted those drugs. The lady was at the cash register [He snapped his fingers]--it was just an instant thing to say, “Give me all the money in the register” because I usually don't do that. I never touched the register at a drug store.
She grabbed the money. She came over and handed it to me. It was a big wad. I think it was like three thousand or something. I stuck it in my pocket. Then I told her to get on the ground. Then I concentrated on him. I forgot about her. She could've taken a gun and shot me or anything.
I was focusing on him. He came over with a little sack of drugs. It was really weird because nothing went like I was hoping it would go. I was pointing the gun at her while she was giving me money. He went and got the drugs. Now he could've went over there and got a gun and shot me.
I don't know if it was because I had so much alcohol in me or. I mean I just got done drinking about fifteen bucks worth of alcohol. So I don't know if that was it or it was like I didn't care at the time because I was in the mood then. The way I felt is I just didn't care. There was no sense of feeling bad, feeling any guilt, anything like that. I wasn't even really thinking about getting caught. I was just focused on getting the drugs. That was my total focus at that robbery. Then I caught the lady trying to crawl around the counter. I told her to get back.
There was no sense of that feeling of power and that feeling of control. There wasn’t even that feeling. It was just, "Get this over with." I wanted those drugs, and I wanted to get out of there real quick.
Yet I think after I got them and I started leaving, that's when the fear of getting caught really came in because the fear of getting caught, even, when I was doing that, was not even there. It was like I couldn't get this going fast enough. You know what I'm saying? That was my main thinking. I couldn't get it going fast enough. I couldn't get this over with. It just seemed like it was taking forever. It didn’t last long at all. A couple minutes, tops. Three minutes, four minutes, tops.
When I was leaving, then, that’s when the fear of getting caught came in. Boy, I didn't want to get caught. I just didn't want to get caught. As I was running away, getting away, then I felt this desperate need to get away. In other words, the fear of getting caught was there.
Then I committed another crime while I was doing that. I took, what do you call it? Hijacking. Car jacking. It was a van. It was a van that was parked. It was a Handy Electrician’s van. It was really weird because I remember walking through Macy’s department store next door to the drug store. I knew there was something going on. I was right. They knew. Macy’s knew what was going on.
They knew that I'd just committed a robbery. I didn't know that at the time. I found out afterwards that lady who left the drug store, the lady at the front desk, she
left right away. She went across the street, and she hit the button, the alarm button at the bank.
When she saw me heading for Macy’s, she called from the bank to Macy’s and said that there was a guy who had just robbed the drug store that was coming in their store. Well they must've notified security because I remember people looking at me. I knew something was up. I knew something was up.
I just had this feeling that these people knew in Macy’s. How, I don't know but I just knew. I was thinking in my mind that they might have thought I stole something in Macy’s. You know what I'm saying? That I was boosting or shoplifting.
Then when I went out the other side door, that's when I saw all the cop cars, vroom, vroom, shooting by. You know just tons of them all over. I remember seeing that van. I'm just thinking in my mind, I need a vehicle. I need a vehicle. None of this was planned. This was just a spur of the moment kind of thing.
I think a lot of time when I do crimes it is that way. It's the spur of the moment. It's just what's happening while the crime is being committed. You come up with different things or you get different emotions and feelings as it's going on. That's what I tell people a lot of times.
No robbery is alike. Every robbery is so different, so unpredictable. You don't know what's going to happen in them because you point a gun at someone—this one lady one time, she turns around and starts running down the aisle. It's like, Jesus, you can't shoot her in the back. You know, I mean,, but there goes your whole robbery. You try to hurry up, get the drugs. It's just, fucking crazy. Sometimes it's just crazy.
When I went up to that van, like I say, I guess there was a sense of power in that. I felt that surge of power. When I went there and opened that door and I said, “Get the fuck out of the van. Get out of there.” I pointed the gun. Then that feeling of the power came on, whereas I didn't feel that at the drug store so much. The guy just got out of the van. He dropped the sandwich and got out. He just wanted out. Matter of fact, I told him to move over. I didn't tell him to get out of the van. I just told him to move over because I was going to hop in and take off with him in it.
He just dropped the sandwich, moved to the other side, opened the door and kept going out. [He laughed.] He kept going. Then the poor guy was using his cell phone. I think what was happening was they were on a call or something, and they got lost because he had a map and he had a sandwich.
He was looking at this map. The other guy was on the phone, “Where'd you say this place was?” This is what I'm assuming. Anyway, the other guy with the phone saw the guy jump out of the van. All of a sudden the van screeches away. So he starts chasing the van.
Then I heard his partner, “He's got a gun. He's got a gun.” He’s hollering at his partner to stay away from the van because I got a gun.
Well, by this time, I didn't even get out of the parking lot. The cops were right behind me. I mean I just seen those cherries. Then this sense of fear. My stomach just fell. God, I hate that feeling. It’s like, It’s over with. I got to go to jail. All this shit's going through your mind, but still that feeling of trying to get away is still there. I still attempted to get away.
That's what's so dangerous about that. I could've killed people in that high speed chase that ensued after that. There was one thing on my mind, and that was to get away, to go. They were right on me, about three, four cop cars with the sirens going. I had the truck going as fast as it could go, like sixty, seventy miles an hour down side streets, going right through stop signs. Just whoosh.
It wasn’t even on my mind about getting in an accident or hurting somebody. It was just getting away. That was the only thing on my mind, was just to keep going, keep going, try to get away, try to get away. It was like this instinctive thing that I was doing. You know what I'm saying?
They chased me maybe a mile. I tried to make a turn. I couldn't. It was kind of rainy out. I tried to turn. I knew I couldn't make the turn so I tried to turn back, but the brakes were locked. So then I let up on the brakes, and what happened is just a corner of the van hit this car. I mean the whole van kind of went on its side. The van was on its side. I still did not stop. I still kept going. There was little bottles of these drugs laying all over. I could see they were lying all over so I started grabbing some of them up.
I kicked out the windshield of the van. I tried to crawl out the windshield. As I crawled out the windshield, I hit this car. I went up on the car, and I fell down on the hood. I seen my face was this far from this woman's face. She started screaming. A shoe came off. So I had one shoe on and one off. I got out on the street again. I tried to run. I fell down right in the middle of the street. That's when the officers they were surrounding me. They were circling me.
“I'm going to fucking blow your brains out. We're going to blow your brains out.” All this. That's when I think I finally came to the [He laughed.] idea that I was caught. Even after rolling over, after the cops were all over me, I still felt this, this need to try to get away.
It's really weird when you're getting chased like that, what goes on, too, in your mind. There's a lot of things that was going on. The sense of getting away. There was even a sense of thrill there, too, with that. There was a thrill with all of that and excitement with all of that. Not at first but after the chase started getting to go, then it started getting exciting and thrilling and everything like that. I mean there was some excitement there. Tremendous feeling of a fear of getting caught. I think that added into the excitement.
Boy, it took a long time to really come to the realization that I was caught. In a lot of those police reports the police said that they came really close to shooting me. I remember a couple times they did because when I was pulling out of that parking lot with the van, there was an off-duty cop that heard all this stuff on his radio, and he tried to pull in front of me. When he pulled in front of me like that, I couldn't go anywhere. That's when the cops in the back of me jumped out of their vehicle and came around to the side.
I looked out the window just for an instant. I saw him point his gun. He was pointing right at me. I ducked down like this. He didn't want to shoot because that other cop was in front. Now if he hadn’t been there I think he would've. He even stated in the report that he came real close to unloading on me, shooting me, because they saw me take the gun out and set it on the seat while I was driving. I had it stuck in my pants. It was uncomfortable. So I took it out, and I set it down so I could drive better.
Everything happened fast. It seemed like it happened real, real fast. At one point time was really slow—in the drug store, and then it was just “poof.” All of a sudden it speeded up.
Poof. It just goes. It just happened so quick, but the beginning, it seemed like it took forever.
I think as it progressed, though, and I think that happens a lot--with some—of my crimes.
Things accelerate. Things start going. Then I start getting built up, more excited and stuff like that. When I do a crime I have the excitement and fear and whatever, but as they start to progress, by the time I'm done with it, man, I'm high. It's like “Whew. I even want to get high.
Then I get the drugs and shoot them in my arm. You know what I'm saying? I get the loot, or the jewelry, or whatever it is. It's an adrenalin kind of thing. You just feel really hyped and really going. Real excited.
Wasn't too fucking exciting when they threw me in the back of the cop car, I'll tell you that. [He laughed.] It was over with. Coming down from that is just terrible. The realization of being there in jail. I was in the hospital. I even didn't give up then. I didn't give up then.
I mean I give up when I knew I was caught, but, you know what? I still was trying to figure another way out. That's when I started going. I was in the back, and I cut my head open. The cops were being pretty mean. They slammed the door on my leg and stuff like that.
I was in the back of the cop car. I knew that I was going to go to prison for a long time. So I started taking my spit and going [He moved his saliva around in his mouth.]. I was laying in the back of the cop car. I'm thinking, Well, how the fuck can I get out of this? I was thinking, Well, just pretend that you're really hurt, and they might bring you to the hospital. This was maybe five, ten minutes after they had me in a cop car. I was thinking about going to jail and prison. I'm kind of crying a little bit and feeling sorry and stuff like that. Then I start thinking, Well, try to prolong your going to jail.
The blood was running down my face. I was thinking, Well, fake like you're really hurt and maybe they'll bring you to the hospital.” Maybe there's someway you can get out of there. So what I did is when the police started taking me down to the courthouse I faked a seizure in the back of the seat.
I start flopping a little bit, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I fell off the seat. I'm on the floor, starting to flop. The cop looks back, “He's having a seizure. He's having a seizure. What should we do?” I can hear their conversation now. “What should we do? Bring him to the hospital?” This and that, this and that, this and that. What I did was I started doing with my spit. I was foaming it up, kind of getting it white. When I got to the hospital I stopped flopping and everything.
They put me in a wheelchair. The cops wheeled me in there. I was cuffed and stuff like that. They put me in an emergency room in the county hospital. They had me lying on this thing. The cops were right there. I couldn't get away. I'm thinking, Well, fuck. I'm in a hospital. Now how am I going to get away?
I'm thinking lying on this bed. There's blood all over my face. I'm lying on this cot and I'm thinking, Fuck. The nurse was looking at me. She was shining the lights. I'm thinking, "I better fake another seizure, and then maybe they'll keep me here longer. I was faking so I thought by them looking at me maybe they could tell that nothing really happened.
All of a sudden I started going spew spew spew. Then the spit that I was saving up like that started coming out of my mouth. It was white and foamy. “He's having another seizure, having a seizure.” They're trying to hold my legs down. . Then I quick stopped the flopping around.
I remember from the workhouse, this guy having a seizure. He told me that after he came out of the seizure, he says, “Boy, I'm tired. I'm just so tired.” So that's what I told them. When you have a seizure I guess it drains all the energy from you. I think that kind of made them believe that maybe I really had a seizure because I told them, “I just want to go to sleep now. I'm tired. I'm tired.” [He laughed.] I forgot all about that.
Then a doctor came in. They still didn't know my name. They kept asking my name. They put me in this holding cell in at the hospital. They got a holding cell down there. Put me in a holding cell. They kept coming in. They had me strapped down I remember. I just felt so bad. I knew I was going to prison. I was just crying. I mean just true hurt and sadness. I knew I was going. I was afraid heavy duty. I couldn't even see the tears were so welled up in my eyes.
I was thinking about my three sons and losing my wife Millie and my sons. I can't even describe it. I just felt everything was all over. I was going to prison for a long, long, long, long time. I felt this tremendous sadness. One of the saddest times I've ever been in my life, I think, was right then, man.
This nurse looked at me. She tried to reassure me that everything was going to be all right. I start talking about my kids. I felt a real genuine caring come from that lady. I remember that. I really remember feeling that. She really cared about me. She felt bad for me.
Anyway, they shave my head. They just shaved a part of my head. I kept going, “Don't shave my fucking head. Fuck you. Don't shave it.” He says, “I'm going to. Hold still.” I said, “Man, I’m not going to let you. I'm going to sue you,” all this because I didn't want to shave. They were just going to shave a big bald patch.
Well, anyway, they started asking these questions. They ended up keeping me overnight then. They ended up keeping me in the hospital. They took me upstairs. They had the lieutenant come in, a couple detectives. They asked for my name. I still wouldn't tell them my name. They get me upstairs.
They got a cop on my door. They didn't handcuff me. Now I'm thinking, again, "Now how am I going to escape? How am I going to get out of here?" This and that. But I just didn't. They were just on me. There were two cops out there. They were young. They were on me. There's no way I could've gotten away, but I tried, you know. I tried everything I could.
I remember them wheeling me down to this room to take a CAT scan because I had convulsions. I had a head injury. They put your whole body in. Then the guy says, “You have to unhandcuff him." So he unhandcuffed me. This was a different guy. They were switching shifts. They had to pull two cops off the street to watch me. There were a lot of things going on. I kept looking at him. The door was here. I was over there. He was over here.
So there was a clear shot at the door, but he could've got there quicker than I could've. So I'm thinking of all these things, like, What am I going to do? I didn’t have the balls. I didn't get the courage up enough to get up and run over there. Well, maybe there'll be another chance tonight, or whatever.
Then I went back to the holding cell. I got into my feeling sorry for myself, feeling real sad and stuff again. I was crying. Then another nurse came in—not the one I talked to before. She started asking about my kids. I started crying again. I felt this real tremendous sense of sadness. She says, “Have you ever been in trouble before?” I go, “Yeah.” She goes, “So you know what you were doing. You made that choice.” I just remember her saying that to me. I go, “Yeah, yeah, you’re right.”
That brought me out of that sadness. Then I started getting tough again. “Fuck you. Fuck everybody." I don't know why I did that. She was right. That's what it was. Screw everybody.
I knew I was going to prison for a long time this time. I figured maybe twenty years. It ended up being nine. But twenty years, I figured. It was just real overwhelming. I felt more sad because of the kids, I think. That's where a lot of my sadness was coming. This feeling inside me.
Maybe I was feeling sorry for myself but I think there was a true feeling, feeling sad for kids, me losing the kids and the kids not having a dad. What Milly was going to think, and the trouble and stuff she was going to go through. That was there. It just was really sad.
Then they came the next morning and the county sheriffs shackled my feet. It was over with. I finally felt, yeah, they got me.
Fiona Speaks is a pseudonym of Jane Gilgun. This blog is a way for me to connect with people who like to talk about ideas and how to connect with what's important. To do this, I want to examine and demystify the blocks I see to building connections and community with other people. Join me.
No comments:
Post a Comment