Robbers Take In Movie, Take Out $1,500

While moviegoers fixed their eyes on five screens Monday night, two robbers held up employees of north Spokane’s Lyons Avenue Cinemas, police said.

The robbers had hidden their guns and watched part of a movie before staging the heist.

One was masked and armed with a handgun, and the other brandished a shotgun when they confronted an assistant manager and other employees about 10:40 p.m., according to police.

The robbers ordered employees to the floor while one of them ordered the manager upstairs to a room where employees were counting money, said one of those workers, a 16-year-old girl who asked not to be identified.

“He was screaming at us not to look at his face,” she said.

“I just froze. I thought, ‘I’ll do what he says so I don’t get shot.”’ The men got away with about $1,500, the worker said.

The robber who was upstairs was described as 5 feet 10 inches tall, 145 pounds, and wore sunglasses and a bandanna covering the bottom of his face, witnesses said. They were not sure of his race.

The man with the shotgun was described as black with short hair, 6 feet tall, and weighing about 150 pounds.

, DataTimes MEMO: No byline in the Spokane edition.