CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department detectives are hoping surveillance pictures will help them identify the man who robbed the GameStop store at the Arboretum shopping center late Monday night.
Police said a man wearing a hoodie and carrying a gun walked into the GameStop just before it closed and 9 p.m. and demanded money from the register.
The clerk told Eyewitness News the man appeared to be nervous.
The robber made the clerk go to the back of the store and demanded the clerk to open what he thought was a safe, but was a refrigerator.
The man settled for the money in the register--$317.81.
“It's the first robbery from a business that we've had out there in 2014,” said Capt. Jim Wilson, who oversees CMPD’s South Division.
Wilson said they are focusing a lot of resources on the Arboretum and other shopping centers that are often full of customers.
“We're constantly rotating officers in and out of there. Sometimes they're on bicycles, sometimes they're on foot, sometimes they're in cars,” Wilson said.
But even that can’t prevent what appears to be an isolated robbery like the one Monday night or an incident on Saturday afternoon where a man exposed himself inside the Walmart to a 9-year-old girl.
Still, many businesses and customers aren’t letting those incidents get in the way.
“I feel pretty safe out here. Nothing beyond your normal level of awareness,” said Jenna Thompson, who runs the local pumpkin stand.
And Tandy Graham has been shopping at the Arboretum for years and won’t let these incidents change that.
“No, it doesn't make me think twice at all because it's so infrequent, I suppose,” Graham said.
Read more top trending stories on wsoctv.com:
WSOC
