I've been sleeping for over 12 hours a day. Maybe I'm making up for all those all-nighters I pulled at Purdue. I am finding it extremely difficult to study for my license exams. I'd rather work on the wedding speech I'm set to give in a month and a half from now. It's difficult to come up with a speech that's funny and witty. With my luck, I'll probably just offend half of the wedding guests.
I sat in the front of the diabetes education center. It was late afternoon-maybe 3 o’clock? I had a few more hours before the end of my day. I was sitting in front of a computer screen on a swivel computer chair. Just waiting. It was a long day and I just wanted to head back to my apartment. I stared at the patient chart in front of me.
“Get on the ground. Get on the ground!”
I turned around and looked over to the patient waiting area. There was a barrier, about chest high, between me and the commotion. It was hard to see what was exactly happening but the voices became louder.
“Get on the ground!”
I figured that one of our store employees caught a shoplifter. I saw two hooded men in sweatshirts. Both were wearing sunglasses; one had a green sweatshirt, the other grey. The person being ordered to the ground was an older woman. I realized that this situation was serious when the man in grey turned towards me. He was wearing sunglasses-the cheap plastic type with pink frames that you give to children on Halloween.
He looked over the barrier and saw me and another pharmacy student.
“Don’t move.”
I froze and the pharmacy student to my side did the same. She was partially facing the wall at the time. But I was facing the robber. He did not seem to mind that I was staring into his face. I noticed that he was no taller than Alfred, the store’s mannequin and mascot. The robber was also kind of chubby.
The man in green ran into the back of the pharmacy where the pharmacist, technicians, another pharmacy student, and the drugs were located.
While this was all occurring, the pharmacy was silent. I sat there in the silence while staring at the ground. I had since realized my mistake of staring directly into the robber’s face. The silence was broken by a familiar voice. I heard the voice of my preceptor. I turned my head towards her and saw that she was oblivious to the whole situation. She was in a private counseling area with a 10 year old boy and his family. I was shocked, then amazed, and then slightly amused when I realized that she wasn’t aware of what was going on. She turned and looked at me. She turned back to her patient. Then she looked at me again.
I give her my people’s eyebrow and tried to mouth something in order to alert her of the situation. I also motioned my hand downward for emphasis. Unfortunately, I don’t think I was very successful in conveying all that information in my nonverbal cues.
Days later after the incident, she would tell me that she would never forget the look on my face. She said that “We are getting robbed!” was practically written on my forehead. I guess the people’s eyebrow worked.
The man in green noticed my preceptor after overhearing her counseling session. He walked over but stopped after seeing the 10-year old child. Almost immediately his demeanor changed. He suddenly seemed very anxious.
“Oh Jesus, there’s a kid. Don’t move!”
The father stood up and walked a few steps towards the robber. He begged the man not to hurt his son.
“My child is sick. This is why we are here. Please don’t hurt my son.”
“No one is going to hurt your son sir. Just don’t move.”
The man in green ran from the back of the pharmacy and out the doors. The man in grey followed. I waited for 30 seconds before I carefully walked to the doors to locked them.
The whole robbery lasted maybe 2 to 3 minutes. After speaking with the pharmacy student who was behind the counter in the back, it occurred as below:
The man in green ran into the back and raised his gun at the employees. He told everyone to get down and everyone obeyed. The pharmacy student had the gun pointed directly at her head. She couldn’t see anything after that point.
“Who’s the pharmacist?”
The owner raised his hand and answered.
“I want oxycontin!”
The owner led him to the narcotics storage area and gave the robber everything he wanted. The bottles were dumped into his pillow case. The man in green then asked for hydrocodone. The owner responded that it was kept in the robot. Upon hearing this, the robber decided to just make away with his oxycontin stash.
***
Eventually two suspects were caught. One suspect was caught because he bragged to a girl and the girl decided to turn him in. The other suspect was brought to jail because he ingested a large amount of pills before the detectives were interviewing him at his residence. He thought he could get rid of the “evidence” this way. He suffered a seizure. After the seizure, he bragged to his fellow inmates in jail and it was the inmates who turned him in. No honor amongst criminals.
I was subpoenaed to testify against the man in the grey since I had a good look at him. It turns out that he wore multiple layers of clothing to disguise his body composition. He also wore platform shoes to disguise his height.
The prosecutor laid enough heat on him due to his criminal history to make him agree to testify against his partner-the man in green. It was generally agreed he was the more dangerous one. As part of the plea bargain, the man in grey would serve 4 years for probation violations but no time at all for the Mathes pharmacy robbery-in exchange for his testimony. He was looking at 20 years minimum if he was found guilty for the robbery. Needless to say, he agreed to testify and I was off the hook.
For the man in green, he was given no plea bargain. The trial proceeded. My preceptor, a few employees of Mathes Pharmacy, the robber’s associates, and the man in grey testified. The technician cried on the stand and told the jury that she sees that robber’s face every night when she goes to sleep. The man in green was found not guilty.
Recently I was asked by my preceptor to speak during a teleconference with the 3rd professional year students about my experiences with the robbery. My main message was this: “Drugs can be replaced, money comes and goes, but you guys are the priority. It’s not worth it. Don’t put yourself in harm’s way.”
After hearing about the verdict, I was disillusioned with the justice system. I was already developing a distrust of the system. (Many years ago there was a failed drug raid by a SWAT team at my parent’s property. Long story short, they got the wrong address. No compensation, no apology.)
I spoke to my close friend about my feelings about the verdict. He told me that he’d rather 100 guilty men go free before 1 innocent man is condemned. I agree with his views, but it did not ease my frustration at the time. To this day, no one is doing time for the Mathes Pharmacy robbery.
This is my poorly written account of my experiences with the Mathes Pharmacy robbery. I feel this story has to be told because years from now no one will remember what occurred inside that pharmacy on November 3rd, 2008.
