Robber found hiding in Dollar General storage closet (+video)

An 18-year-old man was found hiding inside the store he and an accomplice had just robbed at knifepoint Tuesday night, police said.

The two men walked into the Dollar General store at 915 S. Glendale at about 8:40 p.m. Tuesday, pointed knives at an employee and demanded money and cigarettes, Wichita police Lt. James Espinoza said. When they saw security guards at the store, they fled to the back.

Police called to the scene searched the back of the store and found the 18-year-old man hiding in a storage room, Espinoza said. He was taken into custody. The second suspect fled the building before officers arrived.

Officers are still looking for the other man. He is a black male about 6 feet 1 and 160 pounds. He was wearing a pair of brown coveralls and a red bandanna. No employees were injured in the incident.

It is the 25th armed robbery of the year in Wichita, Espinoza said. That includes three robberies on Monday night alone, with different suspect descriptions.

Espinoza said earlier in the week that he didn’t want to speculate on why the city has seen a dramatic increase in robberies over the past several months.

“It is concerning – alarming,” Espinoza said.

Investigators were hoping a few key arrests of suspects linked to multiple robberies would halt the crime wave, but that hasn’t happened.

Suspects “of all kinds of descriptions” have been involved in robberies over the past month, Espinoza said.

One robbery Monday night involved two black males as suspects, another involved two black women and a third was committed by a white male.

“We obviously take it very seriously,” Espinoza said.

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 12:27 PM with the headline "Robber found hiding in Dollar General storage closet (+video)."