West Seattle Crime Watch: Robbery suspects caught on video

(added Wednesday afternoon, surveillance photo from Gas Depot robbery earlier this month)
This story posted online tonight by KING features both surveillance video of robbery suspects and an interview with a man identified as a West Seattle convenience store owner who chased them out of his shop. The story is a little meanderingly told and we can’t tell which store (perhaps you recognize the owner who was interviewed?), but these seem to be the same suspects sought in the Highland Park/White Center robberies earlier this month (and a South Seattle stickup reported earlier this week on SPDBlotter). We had asked Seattle Police and King County Sheriff’s Office previously for any visuals that could be shared to help solve the crimes; if any of the images from tonight’s TV story are obtainable through police, we’ll get them and share them here. WEDNESDAY LATE-MORNING UPDATE: We have received those items and will be adding them soon.

Morgan M&M December 31, 2008 (8:13 am)

Wow, I go into the Shortstop more than a few times a week. Moon is a really nice guy. It’s kind of scary with this being so close to home. These kids look really young. I’m glad he was able to chase them off with that piece of wood.

Mookie December 31, 2008 (2:47 pm)

I’m so thankful no one was hurt and yes that incident is really scary anywhere, and particularly so close by. I used to live three blocks from there and visited that store at least once a week. Moon (and several of the guys who also work there) are kind, hardworking folks.

He made one of my (many) favorite local West Seattle memories for me one summer when I stopped in. It was a very hot day and I hovered over the ice cream/popsicle cooler near the front door. Couldn’t decide what to choose, so eventually I just snagged a bottle of Snapple or something and meandered to the counter. We chatted as usual, and he insisted on going to the ice cream cooler and giving me a bar of some sort, saying it was from his country and really good and I should try it. The creamsicle (from Korea, I think?) tasted like honeydew and it was really rich – it had butter in the ingredients list! A creamsicle that tasted like honeydew! Who knew? My food world expanded a tiny bit, and I just found that a charming and neighborly gesture, the sort of thing to be savored in what can so often be a hurried and impersonal world.

I can’t believe he took on two sawed off pump-action shotgun toting kids, with a big stick and drove them out—and lived to talk about it. Nothing in a till is worth risking your life for! Here’s praying that those young idiot thugs on their spree are arrested soon.

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