A man walked into the Rite Aid on 17 Mile in Cedar Springs Friday, September 13 about 4 p.m. and robbed the store at gunpoint. According to the police dispatch, he reportedly told the clerk he had killed two people, and would kill another.
A witness was standing at the counter waiting for the clerk, and saw the two ladies standing with the suspect and putting something in a yellow bag. He thought they were helping a customer. He said that the suspect ran out, and the clerk said they had been robbed.

The witness then ran out and told his adult son, who was waiting for him in the car. The son chased after the suspect, who ran west to the back of Subway, then south behind the strip mall and into the woods. But the man lost him at that point. “I didn’t see which way he went when he got to the woods,” he explained.

Both the witness and his son were upset about the robbery. “If I’d known sooner what was happening, I would’ve hit him in the throat so hard,” remarked the witness, who was a former police officer and security guard.

Several other police agencies helped Cedar Springs Police in the search for the suspect. Roadblocks were set up on White Creek Avenue by the Kent County Sheriff Department, and a Michigan State Police canine unit was called in, but the dog lost the scent and the suspect was not captured.

According to a witness, the suspect was about 5-foot four-inches, with a dark (tanned) face, sunglasses, black hair or wig, black hoodie, and light-colored jeans. Possibly in his mid-twenties.

This is the third time in three months that a store in Cedar Springs has been robbed. The Instant Cash Advance on Main Street was robbed at gunpoint July 24, and the Admiral gas station was robbed August 17. The Cash Advance robbery is believed to be connected to other robberies in the city of Wyoming.

Anyone with information on any of these robberies is asked to call the Cedar Springs Police at 696-1311, or contact Silent Observer at (616) 774-2345. Silent Observer can be contacted confidentially by using the Report A Crime section on their website, which is www.silentobserver.org. Or, download their mobile app and send an anonymous tip right from your smartphone.