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Retired Trooper Disarms Robber at Convenience Store in Rising Sun

Updated: Tuesday, November 27 2012, 11:56 AM EST
Police in Cecil County are looking for the man who robbed the Chrome Dairy & Deli convenience store in Rising Sun.

The man wearing a hood and mask used a loaded revolver to demand money from store owner Lata Patel.

"He just say 'money.' That's all," Patel said. "I saw the gun, I thought, 'I'm gone.' So, I didn't think anything else. I just gave him everything whatever I had."

The suspect ordered Patel to open the safe.  A few moments later, retired Maryland State Trooper Joe Appleby walked in the store.
The robber led Patel, Appleby, and another customer to the back office.

"If he would have taken the money and gone, that would have been one thing, but the minute he wanted to come back here, that wasn't the normal type of robbery," Appleby, a former SWAT team member, said. "It took probably 30 seconds to walk from the start of the store back to here and that's when I knew I was going to take his weapon from him."

Surveillance video from the store's 14 cameras show the suspect running away after Appleby disarmed him.

"By the time I even got the first set of verbal commands out, he took off this way, and now I'm chasing him." Appleby said.

He ran down Main Street in Rising Sun, to a silver Ford Expedition, then sped off.

"Oh, he saved my life. He is a god," Patel said. "They should have to kill (the robber), so he's not going to have to bother anyone."

The Cecil County Sheriff's Office is investigating.Retired Trooper Disarms Robber at Convenience Store in Rising Sun