PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia police are looking for three men, armed with sledgehammers, guns and knives, who targeted at least two corner stores in the city in recent weeks.
Police released surveillance video and images of the trio on Wednesday, and investigators are concerned that they could strike again.
Video from around 2:20 a.m. Halloween morning shows the masked men, wearing dark clothing and blue plastic gloves, at a store at 29th and Cumberland streets in the Strawberry Mansion section of the city. One of the men swings a sledgehammer to break the door open. Once inside, the video shows the men flashing guns and stealing money and other items.
They were not done that morning. Hours later, they made their way to a corner store at 29th and York streets, according to police.
“One of them put a knife at [a worker’s] stomach and he was asking where is all the money and everything,” an employee, who did not want to be identified, told NBC10 . “[The worker] was begging them. He said, ‘Take whatever you want, just don’t do anything to me.’ He was begging them. He wanted to stay alive.”