Pump ?N Pay robbed by two masked men

A masked gunman and an accomplice robbed Pump ?N Pay Market on Friday, making away with thousands of dollars in cash during their heist which occurred around 8:20 p.m. at a store located on one of McMinnville?s most heavily traveled highways.

The lone female clerk told police she was busy stocking a cooler behind the counter when she was grabbed from behind, a gun pointed at her head by a masked man who crept up behind her after entering the Smithville Highway convenience store.

The gun-wielding robber, identified as a black male standing about 6-foot-3 and weighing around 250 pounds, was wearing a camouflage jacket and baggy blue jeans. His masked accomplice, also believed to be a black man identified only as having crooked bottom teeth, stood at the door acting as the lookout as the robber demanded money.

?The man with the gun told her to give him the money or he would shoot her,? said McMinnville patrolman Rodney Whiles in his report. ?He then pushed her toward the cash register to get the money and slapped her because she was not getting the money fast enough.?

While the clerk was doing as told, the gunman began searching under the cash register for more money. His search paid off as he found the day shift receipts which totaled over $2,000 in cash and checks.

The robber also found another bag containing over $1,000 to go with the nearly $1,000 he got from the store register. The men then stuffed the money into a duffle bag along with six to eight cartons of cigarettes before fleeing the store.

The men were last seen fleeing on foot toward Cumberland Plaza. The clerk called police from a hiding place she had taken on the floor as the men were preparing to flee the store. A customer came in and stayed with her until police arrived, noting he walked around the back of the store and saw no one.

Police have no prime suspects. Anyone who may have seen anything around the time of the heist is asked to contact police.

It marked the fourth armed robbery at Pump ?N Pay in the past six years, not counting two other heists where a courier car containing thousands of dollars was stolen from the parking lot while the driver was inside, and where a bag of day receipts containing thousands disappeared without a trace from the store office. Both of those incidents happened within weeks of each other in December 2005.