Crime & Safety

Game Stop Clerk Describes Terrifying Armed Robbery Ordeal

Extra patrols have been added in business areas around town, police said.

The day after an armed gunman held up the Game Stop in Mattituck, an employee who was on duty during the terrifying ordeal, Jack Davidson, 20, described the moment when he knew he was being robbed at gunpoint.

"At first, I thought it was a joke. I wasn't sure if it was serious or not because you only hear about stuff like that in the movies. But then my adrenaline just started to kick in and I knew that I had to give him whatever we had.

"I wasn't too scared; my grandpa is in the FBI, and he was in the back of my mind the entire time, telling me to just play it cool. The only thing I was worried about was if I were to get shot, there was so much I still had to say to people that I loved."

The day after the hold-up Davidson said he was grateful to be okay. "I feel bad for the guy, to be in that desperate of a state of mind to rob a store dry, you clearly need help. My manager and I handled the situation as well as we could."

On Wednesday, police said there have been no breaks in the case.

"Unfortunately, there aren't any updates," Southold Town Police Chief Martin Flatley said. "We are actively still working the investigation."

Flatley said as a precaution, extra police patrols have been added in all the business areas of town.

Veronica Jacobson, who works at Michelangelo's next door to Game Stop, said she believed one challenge might be the difficulty in getting a fingerprint, especially because of the rush of customers that had been coming in all day, since the new "Call of Duty: Ghost" game was released at midnight on Tuesday.

Flatley discussed the fingerprint concerns: "It goes without saying that when attempting to retrieve fingerprints from a location, that a location that is open to the public and has a high volume of persons using that area, it becomes difficult to retrieve usable prints and even more difficult to eliminate everyone else’s prints from any suspect fingerprints," he said. "If you were identifying prints in a house where two people were the only ones touching anything in the house, it would be that much easier."

The police investigation, Flatley said, will include thorough interviews of potential witnesses, and gathering of all possible evidence, including video and/or audio from surrounding systems.

"We will also remain cognizant of surrounding jurisdictions’ crimes and investigations to look for similar patterns," Flatley said. "Our patrol units are all well-informed on the particulars of this robbery." 

According to Flatley, an armed white man, carrying what appeared to be a handgun, entered the store on Tuesday evening and demanded cash from a clerk. After he was given cash he fled on foot, police said. He has not yet been located. 

Flatley said a K-9 unit was called in, to no avail. "It did not yield any new investigative leads, unfortunately," he said.

Jacobson said police had come to ask if anyone had information about the gunpoint robbery. Jacobson said Game Stop had been packed all day because the new game had been released.

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