Live PD Lt. Danny Brown Gives Tips To Help Businesses Protect Themselves During Armed Robbery

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COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO)– Richland County Deputies were kept on their toes with three armed robberies Sunday night.  Now RCSD is asking businesses to be on the lookout and giving tips on how to make sure they are safe.

“There’s a feeling and a pattern to two of them. That we feel are probably connected because they had kind of the same MO on both of them, when they went in, the same words were spoken, stuff like that,” Lt. Danny Brown said, with RCSD.  At one of the robberies, deputies said the two armed suspects got away with nearly $14-thousand. RCSD said since all of the suspects in the armed robberies were armed, it is lucky no one was hurt.  

“If this situation is happening we want you to cooperate with the bad guys. Give them what they want so they can get out of there. They know our response time is only a few minutes, there will be police coming,” Brown said. 

RCSD said there are things stores can do to help prevent them from being targets.

The biggest tips:

-Have lots of lighting around the store

-Make sure the cashier is visible from the front of the store

-Do not cloud up the front window with too much advertising and signage.

“We don’t like those, we can’t see inside. And you can’t see anybody come on up to the business. So, if you can see the cashier nice and clear and the cashier or whoever is inside the business can see out into the parking lot, it helps security a lot. It really does,” Lt. Brown said.  

Brown said with the technology they have, these robbers will definitely get caught; and it is not just the security cameras that will put the bad guys behind bars.

“Eventually somebody always slips up and they get caught. It may be a day or two from now, it might be a year from now, but they always slip up and get caught. And a lot of it is through forensics.  It’ll either be done with cameras, with DNA, with fingerprints,” Brown said. 

Brown said if any store owner needs an escort to drop money at the end of the night, RCSD is more than happy to do that. Or if anyone who wants some extra security while walking out to their cars at night, they are available to do that too.