Would-be florist robbers get only rose as loot
Friday, October 31, 2008 7:23 AM PDT
By The Associated Press
Printable version
E-mail this articleYAKIMA — A $2 rose was the only loot some robbers got when they tried to hold up a flower shop.
Police Sgt. Erik Hildebrand says a clerk at Shirley’s Flower Shop told investigators that two men entered the store about 7:20 p.m. Wednesday.
One approached the cash register with a decorative wooden rose, but the other pointed a 9mm pistol at the clerk’s head and demanded money.
The clerk, a 46-year-old woman, refused, and the men left the store with only the rose.
Hildebrand says the clerk called 911, providing an accurate license plate and description of the getaway vehicle.
Officers spotted the truck on Interstate 82, pulled it over, and arrested its three occupants for investigation of first-degree robbery.
A gun and the decorative wooden rose were found in the truck.
The clerk, reached by telephone at the shop, declined to give her name, but told The Associated Press she refused to give the robbers money, in spite of the gun, because: “It wasn’t fear; it was anger. ’How dare you do that to me!”’
She said she hopes the shop won’t be a target again, now that criminals know Shirley’s won’t give them money.
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