Police1 Staff Report
(COLUMBUS, Ohio) -- A SWAT team member shot and killed a robbery suspect who threatened police with a sawed-off shotgun in front of a tobacco store on Christmas.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, police did not release the name of the 37-year-old man until they notified his next of kin. He died about 7 p.m. from gunshot wounds at Mount Carmel West, an area hospital, a nursing supervisor told the Dispatch yesterday.
The man was robbing Smokers Value, 3461 Sullivant Ave., at gunpoint shortly before 4 p.m. He had entered the store with a sawed-off shotgun and threatened the storeowner and a customer.
When he exited through a side door police commanded him to drop his weapon, according to the newspaper. He was shot when he allegedly pointed the gun at one of the officers.
Police arrested Donald G. Orris, 49, the getaway car driver and charged him with one count of aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony.
Detectives had been tailing the two men for the past week on the suspicion that they were responsible for a series of armed robberies that had occurred recently, authorities told the Dispatch.
Orris, a repeat offender, has been in jail on three separate terms beginning in 1979, 1981 and 1985 on convictions ranging from armed robbery to aggravated burglary, according to the Dispatch.
Orris was scheduled to be arraigned in Franklin County Municipal Court yesterday.
Attempts to reach the Columbus Police spokesman by press time yesterday were unsuccessful.