BATH
A 15-year-old Waldoboro male was charged with robbery Sunday night after allegedly wielding a toy gun and demanding money from the clerk at the One Stop convenience store on Washington Street.
Bath police responded to the store just before 7:30 p.m. Sunday after the clerk reported a male wearing a checkered shirt handed her a note stating, “This is a robbery, I have a gun,” Bath Police Lt. Stan Cielinski said today.
The clerk had seen the suspect previously, Cielinski said, and told him she wouldn’t give him any money, and he ran from the store.
Bath Police Sgt. Dan Couture, who was already in the area, saw a male matching the suspect’s description near the intersection of Middle and Bath streets and, after a brief foot chase, cornered him on a walking path off Middle Street, according to a release from Bath Police Chief Mike Field.
The suspect allegedly refused to follow Couture’s orders to come out of the bushes and sat down in tall grass. Couture “didn’t know where the gun was,” Cielinski said.
After additional officers from Bath and the Sagadahoc County Sheriff ’s Office responded, the male was taken into custody, at which point officers found the toy gun hidden in the juvenile’s pant leg.
Cielinski said the plastic gun is made to look like a semi-automatic weapon.
“The juvenile put himself in serious danger using a toy gun during the robbery and by not following officers’ orders when he was cornered,” Field said in the release. “This incident could have had a tragic ending for the young man.”
The male is also a suspect in a theft on Saturday night, when a juvenile took a Platinum Plus taxi from Waldoboro to Bath and ran from the taxi without paying a $55 fare, according to Cielinski.
He was already on probation at the time of both incidents.
The suspect was charged with robbery, theft and possession of alcohol by a minor for Sunday’s incidents.
Bath police transported him to Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland. He is scheduled to appear in West Bath juvenile court on July 2.
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