NEWPORT — Police are looking for a man who robbed the Rite Aid pharmacy Thursday night in the town’s triangle business district.
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Newport Police Chief Leonard Macdaid said a man wearing a black skull cap and sunglasses handed the employee a note about 5:30 p.m. and left with an undisclosed quantity of drugs.
Macdaid said no one was injured and the clerk did not see a weapon.
The robber was white, was about 6 feet tall and wore a black jacket and tan pants, Macdaid said. He left the Moosehead Trail pharmacy on foot near the intersection of U.S. Route 2 and Route 100.
He declined to say what kind of drugs were taken.
“We’re just summing up leads right now and I don’t want to give out too much,” he said.
The police chief said the pharmacy robbery is the first in his eight years in Newport. He said his town can be added to the long list of communities experiencing problems with illegal prescription drug use and crime.
“It’s been an ongoing problem with prescription drugs for the last five years. The problem all law enforcement has right now is prescription drugs,” Macdaid said.
He advised drug store employees to be cautious and to cooperate with robbers’ demands.
“We always train people to give them whatever they want because personnel safety is No. 1,” he said. “We’ll deal with it later and do our job, but we want to make sure everybody is safe inside these pharmacies.”
He asked anyone with information on the robbery to call police at 368-3263.
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