Local areas seeing increase in robberies

By Jimmy LaRoue

Published: June 18, 2008

The Augusta County Sheriff’s Office says no arrest has been made in connection with Tuesday’s robbery of the East Side Grocery in Dooms, in which it says an estimated $980 was taken.
The Dooms grocery was also the subject of an attempted robbery June 8. Jeremy Hamilton, 27, of Fishersville, allegedly entered the store and demanded cash before leaving with nothing. He was arrested later that same day.
The latest robbery there is the fourth – attempted or otherwise – in the region in the last month, and the third in Augusta County. The other took place at the Augusta Co-op Farm Bureau in Staunton on June 13.
In Waynesboro, five robberies of businesses have taken place this year – four of those in January — making that the city’s highest total dating back to 2003. Waynesboro Police Sgt. Kelly Walker said the city hasn’t seen a recent uptick in armed robberies, and noted that the city has not had more than five business robberies in a single year since 2003.
“That doesn’t really say anything about what’s going on right now in the last month,” Walker said, “because we haven’t had anything like what’s been going on in the county or across the mountain.”
He said property crimes are increasing, but said that was normal for this time of year. Across the region, Walker said he’s noticed a trend toward increased robberies in the last two to three years.
For the year, however, Waynesboro is on pace, with 17 robberies overall, to exceed its highest total of robberies since 2005, when there were 19 robberies in the city. In Staunton, robberies overall increased 58 percent in 2007 to 19.
Statewide, robbery offenses in 2007 went up nearly one percent, to 8,875, from the previous year.
While there have been no recent robberies in Waynesboro, Walker says he is seeing an increase in shoplifting, especially in the last year, due to the increase in big box retailers in the city.
“Shoplifting has become a pretty significant problem,” Walker said.
In Waynesboro, there have been two reported thefts in recent weeks, at the Salvation Army and at William Perry Elementary School.