A Chicago man has been charged in connection with a robbery at a cellphone store in Westchester in September in which two clerks were tied up.
Kantrill Robinson, 22, of the 10800 block of Eberhart Street, Chicago, was charged with two counts of aggravated robbery and two counts of aggravated kidnapping.
Westchester police public services coordinator Frank Esposito said police believe Robinson is one of two men who walked into the Sprint Store, 10356 Roosevelt Road, at 3:12 p.m. Sept. 30, tied up two clerks and stole an undisclosed amount of cash and various cellphones. The kidnapping charge relates to the two clerks being tied up, he said.
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Esposito said Robinson was arrested after investigators learned about a similar crime in another town.
“They sent what is called a critical reach to local agencies and a similar incident helped trace him back to our case,” he said.
Esposito said the department is still investigating and is looking for the other person involved in the robbery, in which he said it was implied that they had a gun.
Police also looked at surveillance videos from nearby stores to try to identify the suspects. Although the clerks saw the suspects, Esposito said they were not able to provide a good description because they were shaken up by the incident.
In that situation, “you’re panicked. You have tunnel vision. You don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Esposito said a robbery in the middle of the day was brazen.
“In today’s day anything can happen,” he said. “It’s unusual that someone would have the brass do to it in the middle of the day in a busy strip mall.”
Esposito said at the time that the robbery may have been prompted by the release of the iPhone 7.
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