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Villagers Fight For Their Neighborhood Grocer, Catch Robbers
posted (September 5, 2019)

Changing gears now to the rare crime story with a happy ending.

A Ladyville store was robbed last night, but, this time the bad guys got busted by some neighborhood heroes. Cherisse Halsall spoke to them today:

It was business as usual at Mike's store after 7:00 last night when three males entered the store armed with knives, and demanded money. As this surveillance video shows, the store's security guard attempted to fight them off

Voice of Security Guard Mike's store
"One of them pulled a knife to my throat, the big one,and the other two went to the side of the cash register and just took out money or whatever so I couldn't really understand what was going on behind me but I myself was struggling with the guy with the knife and I think when he was conscious that I was winning that battle of taking his knife that's when he bit me and he kept telling me to let go of the knife. I thought about my employer and it's a girl so I feared for her safety so that's when I eased of the knife and told the guy you know just take what you want and do what you have to do."

Once the security guard's attacker got free, all three robbers attempted to flee but that wasn't going to prove easy.  What the robbers didn't know was that their movements were being watched. 24 year old Marlon Casey 24, 22 year old Jamille Matthew, and a younger man, Jeremy Cattouse gave chase, with one of them yelling. "Unu no weh rob fi we Chiney."

Voice of Jamille Matthews - Neighborhood Hero
"We saw them walking this way from the lane up there. We thought it was suspicious because we've lived back here a long time and we've never seen their faces so, we know they aren't from back here and we already knew what was happening and then both my cousins said look at these guys here what are they up to? And then after we'd seen them coming all of a sudden we heard the shutters go down. One of my friends had a car there so we jumped in the car and came here. We saw the shutters down and figured it's a robbery. After that we drove around in a circle and when we came back we saw those guys running out. At that point we picked up another cousin and jumped back in the car, a bunch of people were chasing them. We went around there and they ran into liberty children's home so we went behind them. Then afterwards we chased him and they, one of the young men, looked like they didn't know where to run because they aren't from here and right there we cornered him and we brought him back."

Cherisse Halsall
"So you were able to get all the money back?"

Voice of Jamille Matthews
"We don't know if it's all because we don't know how much they took but we got a bag of money."

They gave that back to the storeowner. Casey, Matthews, and Cattouse made a citizen's arrest of one of the robbers, a minor. He was made to sit in front of Mike's Store until police could pick him up.

We asked Matthews why he and his fellow villagers felt the need to get involved in stopping a robbery in progress. His answer was quite practical.

Voice of Jamille Matthews
"We are from back here. The police are always harassing us so if that had happened they would have come pick us up. We would have spent a free 48 for nothing, something that we didn't even do."

The robber was eventually handed over to police. There were cheers and a mood of celebration in the neighborhood and the heroes were justly rewarded.

Voice of Jamille Matthews
"She just started to give us things a pack of Benson, stout, Rude bwoy and they thing."

Police currently only have that single suspect detained.  

For an additional response to why they stopped the robbery the young men simply claim that they are, quote "straight with â€ËÅ"her', because they can credit from her when they need to.

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