CLERK ROBBED; IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 17, 1992                   TAG: 9201170384
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
CLERK ROBBED; IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE
Shelli Pearce stood in her father's video store Wednesday night with a pistol pressed to her head, fearing she'd be raped.
A 1987 graduate of Northside High School, Pearce was working the counter alone shortly after 8:30 p.m. when a man approached the counter of American Video Outlet on Grandin Road.
The store, just down the road from Patrick Henry High School, is in a neighborhood where violent crime is infrequent.
"He asked about a membership in the video club," she said. "He wanted to know how much it would cost."
Pearce handed him a membership application and a pen as they continued to talk.
"Do I need an ID?" Pearce remembered him asking.
She asked for a driver's license and a credit card. The man said he had only a driver's license, and turned toward the door.
Suddenly, he wheeled and came around the counter, holding a pistol waist-high.
"This is a robbery," he said, and asked if anyone else was in the store.
Pearce's father, Scott, was out of earshot in a room in the rear of the building. A former police officer in Utah, Scott Pearce wishes he'd have heard the robber.
Shelli Pearce directed the man to the money drawer, but when the robber ordered her to get the money, she refused.
Again, he ordered. Again, she refused.
Finally, Pearce relented, handing over some money from the drawer.
"Leave," she told him.
Instead, he demanded her purse. She refused.
The robber told her to get the key and lock the store's front door. Again, Pearce refused.
Pearce said the man then grabbed her arm and forced her to an office in the back, where he pointed the gun at her head.
"He told me to take off my clothes," Pearce said. She refused.
The robber spotted a telephone in the office. Fearing she'd call police, he ordered her into a restroom.
He reached out and touched her turtleneck sweater, again commanding her to undress. Pearce refused.
The robber next focused on an engagement ring she was wearing.
"It's a pretty ring," the man said as he tried to pull it from her finger.
When she pulled back and placed her hand in her pocket, he abruptly decided to leave, telling her not to come out of the restroom for five minutes.
Pearce came out as soon as she heard the front door close.
About the same time, her father walked to the front of the store in time to glimpse the robber going out the front door. The man dashed down a side street out of sight.
Roanoke police arrived within two minutes but the robber was long gone. No arrest had been made by Thursday afternoon.
"I just wish I'd have come up sooner," said Scott Pearce. "It makes me angry that he's such a lowlife that the only way for him to get money is to take it from someone instead of working."

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB