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While customers hug floor, two men clean out register

During the robbery, the armed pair take cash, beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets, as well as customers' wallets.

By NICOLE JOHNSON
Published July 19, 2006

OLDSMAR - Two armed men robbed a convenience store of cash, beer, lottery tickets and cigarettes, and several customers of their wallets Monday night, authorities said.

The robbers struck about 8:45 p.m. Monday at the Hess Express convenience store at 3659 State Road 580, according to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

Both robbers entered the store wearing sunglasses and surgical gloves, carrying small dark semiautomatic handguns.

After entering the store, the two men ordered the four customers there to the floor and demanded that the clerk hand over the cash in the registers. They took beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets, and demanded the customers' wallets.

The men then fled in a small black two-door vehicle, going west on State Road 580, authorities said.

Both robbers are described as black, 20 to 30 years old and about 6 feet tall, and one was heavier than the other.

The heavier suspect, who is said to weigh 170 to 180 pounds, was last seen wearing a dark blue hooded sweatshirt with a business logo and the word "MacLaren" in white on the front and back, black pants and green surgical gloves.

The other robber, who weighs 130 to 140 pounds, was wearing a brown knit cap with a bill, a white long-sleeved button-down shirt, tan pants, white sneakers and green surgical gloves.

Anyone with information concerning this crime is asked to call Detective Jim Cavagnaro of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Robbery Unit at (727) 582-6200, or to remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-873-8477.

[Last modified July 18, 2006, 22:50:22]