Police are following leads and are optimistic that they will solve the Sunday pharmacy robbery in Manchester, Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty said Wednesday.
The sheriff’s office has said a man in his late 20s walked into the Rite Aid pharmacy on U.S. Route 202 at 12:10 p.m. Sunday and demanded prescription drugs, saying he had a gun without showing one.
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He was given an undisclosed amount of oxycodone, a prescription painkiller, and methylphenidate, a drug used to treat hyperactivity, before fleeing the store on foot and walking west toward Winthrop on a side of the building without security cameras, the sheriff’s office has said.
The red-bearded suspect stands between 5-foot-9 and 5-foot-11, weighing about 200 pounds. In security photographs, he is wearing a gray New York Yankees cap; a black, full-zip hoodie over a black T-shirt; and gray gym shorts.
After releasing those photos, Liberty said his office received six to eight tips from the public and police on the suspect’s possible name, with some of those tips matching others. However, he said there were “no hard suspects” as of Wednesday afternoon.
“I’m optimistic that we’ll have something here,” Liberty said, “but these things take time.”
The sheriff’s office is investigating the robbery with help from the FBI and the Maine State Police. The pharmacy was last robbed in 2011. Pharmacy robberies were once a crime epidemic in Maine, with a record 58 in 2012 and a statewide high of nine in Augusta.
That number has plunged lately, and many have attributed that to heroin’s cheaper cost. The Manchester robbery was the first in the Augusta area since November 2013.
In that month, the pharmacy at the Shaw’s supermarket on Augusta’s Western Avenue was robbed twice in 48 hours at the same time of day. A Gardiner man pleaded guilty to those robberies in April.
Michael Shepherd — 370-7652
Twitter: @mikeshepherdme
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