Business owner angry and frustrated after gas station is robbed

MERIDIAN, Miss. (WTOK) - A business owner said he’s angry and employees are in shock after a local gas station was robbed early Thursday morning.

Around 4 a.m., a male walked into the Sunoco gas station on North Hills Street. He then walked around to the cashier, briefly showed her a gun, and asked for the money from the cash register.

“What has happened is, it has affected me with staffing. The people he had robbed are very upset, were in shock when the young lady left. We’ve come through so much with COVID and with all the problems we had lately. And we started to have some things looking a little bit better, and boom, this guy comes in, and really, it just hammers us. We’re really tired of this kind of stuff,” said store owner, David Haggard.

Haggard did not want to say how much money was stolen but believes the robber was watching the store, waiting for the last customer at the time to leave.

Haggard said he blames the newly elected city council for increased crime in the city.

“In the previous administration, I sent a letter to the Percy Bland administration and had immediate help and cleaned out that area of all the problems that we were having. Interstate Auto had very few problems after that and now they’ve been having problems lately. We all came before the city council, and we had help. The new city council came in, listened to the voices of a few and basically voted out the police chief that was doing a fantastic job and now look what’s happening,” said Haggard.

Haggard said this was a traumatic experience and he hopes someone will come forward with information.

“Somebody’s husband, somebody’s son, somebody’s boyfriend, came home last night with several hundred dollars more than he with. Somebody knows that. I wish that person would pick up the phone and call the police department and give us that tip and let us have that guy arrested,” said Haggard.

Haggard said the robber was not even in the store for 30 seconds before he walked across the street toward the Broadmoor Home Center.

Haggard said people should pay attention to the robber’s shoes and unique pants as a clue in recognizing him.

Anyone who has information about the crime may report it to Crimestoppers at 855-485-8477.

Copyright 2021 WTOK. All rights reserved.