ALLEN PARK — Two men got away with more than $7,000 after a liquor store robbery.
At 11 p.m. June 27 the men, one carrying a rifle, allegedly robbed Southfield Liquor, 15672 Southfield, while holding an employee at gunpoint.
The employee said he was standing behind the counter when a black man wearing a red shirt walked into the store, pointed a black rifle in his face, jumped across the counter and told him to get down or he would shoot.
The employee laid down on the ground and the man in the red shirt asked him where the money was. Upon being told, the man rested the rifle between his legs and began to stuff his pockets with cash.
The man took more than $4,000 from beneath the counter and then forced the employee to open the cash register and took more than $2,000.
The employee then saw the other man, who was described as black and wearing a black sweatshirt, grab another employee by the neck and push him toward the end of the counter.
The man in the black sweatshirt then took about $450 from the store’s safe.
While the robbers were leaving they threatened to shoot any employees who moved and were seen walking quickly across the parking lot and behind B Boomer’s Sports Bar & Grille, 16006 Southfield.
A witness saw the pair run west down the alley between Quandt and Kim. The witness said he saw the two men running through the alley with “cash flying all over the place.”
He then saw the men get into a red 2000 Chevrolet Lumina, but when they saw him watching them, they left the car and ran behind Boomer’s.
When police arrived at the scene, they found a rifle on the passenger’s seat of the car in plain view.
Allen Park and Melvindale police established a perimeter in the general direction of the suspects, but at 1 a.m. the search was called off.
Police later recovered over $100 of the stolen money dropped by the suspects in the alley between Quandt and Kim.
The suspects’ vehicle was towed and preserved to take fingerprints.