Armed man robs dry cleaners

A man armed with a cutting tool robbed the Schelling’s Dry Cleaners at 215 N. Sullivan Road Thursday afternoon and escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash, said Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and Spokane Valley Police and spokesman Sgt. Dave Reagan.

Officers responding to the 2:50 p.m. robbery alarm found several employees who had locked themselves inside the business after the suspect’s exit.

The employees reported that the suspect had been walking back and forth in the area of the business for several minutes before he entered the store and brandished the bladed appliance on a multitool device. The suspect demanded cash and a female employee handed him bills from the register.

The employees described the robber as a white male about 20 to 25 years old, 5-foot-8 to 5-9 and 160 pounds. He had bushy collar-length hair and was wearing something on his head that one employee said looked like underwear.

The suspect wore blue jeans and a brown T-shirt with “Corona” printed on the front.

Anyone with information regarding this armed robbery is encouraged to call the Spokane Valley Police at 242-TIPS.

Deputy checking bank called in as ‘suspicious’

A Spokane County sheriff’s deputy performing a bank security check was reported to 911 as a suspicious person last Friday.

Deputy Ryan Truman stopped by a Liberty Lake bank about 2 p.m. and entered to conduct a security check, said Sheriff’s Office and Spokane Valley Police spokesman Sgt. Dave Reagan.

These types of business checks are encouraged by the Sheriff’s Office, Reagan said. They familiarize deputies with the layouts of the banks and allow friendly interaction between law enforcement and bank employees, all of which could be helpful if a crime occurred in the future.

In this case however, employees became suspicious when Truman began asking about the vault location, numbers of employees and other questions about the bank’s operations.

Despite the fact that he was in uniform and driving a marked sheriff’s patrol car, an assistant manager reported him as suspicious. “He appeared to be in uniform” and was driving a “vehicle that was white and had a green ‘sheriff’ on the side,” she reported in making the suspicious person report.

Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays usually feature an increase in armed robberies in Spokane County. Banks, credit unions and convenience store employees can expect more of these security “walk-throughs” as the holidays approach, Reagan said.