Pharmacist describes confrontation with robber
A wooden pool cue, once a simple fixture in the back room of Neighborhood Drug Store, became a method of defence during an attempted robbery last Monday.
Pharmacy owner Sara EtemadRad said she knew something was amiss when a man entered the pharmacy with his face covered by a hood. Etemad-Rad alleges that the man demanded several pharmaceutical drugs and brandished a knife.
The man became more aggressive after Etemad-Rad said she called police, and he jumped onto the raised counter. She told the man she would help one of her pharmacy technicians pack up the drugs he was asking for and went into the back room. That’s when she saw the pool cue. “I grabbed it,” she said. “I just, basically, decided to hit him with this.”
Etemad-Rad struck him a number of times, and eventually the man left the Wyandotte Street East pharmacy without any prescription drugs.
The pool cue has been in the pharmacy for 10 or 11 years, before Etemad-Rad owned the store. When she asked the former owner about it, he joked that the pool cue was for when he got mad at patients.
“It was a joke ...” said EtemadRad. “I never thought that I (was) going to use it myself one day.”
Etemad-Rad said she never considered having protection in the pharmacy — let alone the pool cue.
“What was really bothering me after it all — it was not the whole robbery and situation — but his eyes looking at me,” she said. “He was just looking at me like, ‘you’re unbelievable, are you kidding me?’ in silence. And I’m just like hitting him more and more.”
Windsor police say the suspect was last seen running north from the scene.
Etemad-Rad said police arrived “very fast.” She says she initially hesitated to tell them she hit the would-be robber with the pool cue.
“I told (the police officer) and he kind of stared at me,” Etemad-Rad said. “And I was just thinking, am I in ... trouble? But then he said, ‘good job, good job.’ ”
Police are still looking for the suspect, who they describe as a white male between 19 and 25 years of age, wearing a black hoodie, green cargo pants and black running shoes.
Etemad-Rad’s pharmacy has been robbed three times in total.
She said it took her a few moments to process what was happening during the first robbery several years ago, because pharmacy robberies weren’t common then like they are now.
“There was (one) once and a while; every two, three months you will hear about one,” she said. “But it got very extreme.”
Etemad-Rad said she was expecting a robbery “any minute” after another local pharmacy was recently robbed.
She and her staff had gone over what to do during a robbery only hours before the June 5 attempt, and Etemad-Rad said they are extremely aware of who is entering the store.
Pharmacists are often not trained for robbery situations, Etemad-Rad said.
“We are not well trained for this fact, that we can be robbed any minute,” Etemad-Rad said. “It is something that we were thinking rarely about, but it’s just happening every day.”
Still, Etemad-Rad said she is far from scared.
“What I really think, I cannot live with fear. I’m not saying that I’m not scared of anybody, but I’m thinking, how is it going to help me? How is it going to help me to be scared of everything?”