On Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at 10:34 a.m., the Washington County Sheriff’s Office received a report of an armed robbery that occurred in the parking lot of Ashley Furniture located at 2515 Cabela Way in the Town of Polk.
The victim, a 66-year-old Village of Jackson man, made an online agreement to sell a handgun to a prospective buyer through a popular website.
The victim subsequently made arrangements to meet the “buyer” in a public access parking lot to complete the transaction. The victim choose the Ashley Furniture parking lot merely out of convenience of location.
The “buyer” approached the seller’s vehicle on foot and entered the passenger side. The “buyer” then began to inspect the firearm while another male subject approached the vehicle on foot and opened the driver’s side of the vehicle armed with a handgun.
The armed suspect then threatened the seller with another firearm and both suspects then fled the area on foot with the stolen handgun.
The seller, who is a valid CCW permit holder, then exited his car and retrieved another concealed pistol from the car and shot at least one round towards the suspects that were fleeing.
The responding deputies quickly conducted a canvass of the commercial areas adjacent to the parking lot and obtained the suspects’ physical descriptions as well as a detailed vehicle description from several different individuals.
This description was immediately relayed to several other law enforcement agencies including Germantown Police, the Wisconsin State Patrol and the Menomonee Falls Police Department.
Officers from these three law enforcement agencies were able to locate a vehicle in the area of 124th St and Old Orchard Rd. in the Village of Menomonee Falls.
The vehicle was stopped and four subjects were taken into custody without incident. Evidence was located tying the occupants to the robbery.
As of this writing, all subjects are currently in custody at the Sheriff’s Office while the investigation continues. Three of the subjects are males ages 17, 18 and 22.
There was also a 17-year-old female in the car. All are residents of the city of Milwaukee and the adults have lengthy violent criminal records including a previous conviction of armed robbery.
No one was injured as a result of this incident and all charges are pending.