1 week Ago
A 40-year law enforcement veteran stopped the alleged attempted robbery of an Aiken business April 10. The alleged robbery occurred around 4:20 p.m.
at Floyd and Green Jewelers on Silver Bluff Road. Three men wearing masks — one had on a safety vest — attempted to enter the store, Cliff Powell said. Powell's company, Powell Asset Protection , has a static assignment to provide security to Floyd and Green's Silver Bluff Road store each day.
"I was on duty at Floyd and Green protecting the store and the employees ...
," Powell said April 11. One of the men had what looked like a handgun and appeared to have a hammer, he added. "At that point, I knew they weren't there to shop," Powell said.
"They were there to cause problems ...
It changed to a robbery within two seconds." Powell said he moved into the vestibule — the space between two sets of doors — to confront the men and pulled out his gun. "I ordered them to the ground and to show me their hands at which time they they all took and ran 180 degrees," Powell added.
The man in the safety vest ran past the car to the storage unit business next door and was picked up by his compatriots as they left the store, Powell continued. "The individuals are still at at large ..
.," Powell said. Powell said Aiken County Sheriff Marty Sawyer told him that if he'd waited a second to go to the door, the men would have entered the store and there would have been a gunfight.
He added he had moved to the store's doors to tell the men to move their car — a black, four-door Infiniti Q50 — out of one of the store's handicapped spots. Powell, who has 22 years of traffic enforcement experience, said he believed the driver to be a "young person" and not a person with a disability. The driver pulled into the parking lot at a high rate of speed, then turned 180 degrees and backed into a handicapped parking space, Powell said.
"It was very, very fast and, quite frankly, it wasn't very safe," Powell said. "Had there been people walking in the parking lot, they would have been hit by the car." Also, disabled people don't typically back into parking spots.
"Typically, handicap people are slow drivers, are cautious drivers...
The approach to the drive to the parking spot was aggressive," Powell said. A social media post about the situation drew lots of eyeballs April 10. "We're going to use this as a platform for training," Powell continued.
"Whether you're a police officer, a father, a mother or a business owner, it gets back to one simple thing: You have to be aware of your surroundings. "In the blink of an eye, people with bad intentions can disrupt your life, it can disrupt your business," Powell added..
