HOPEWELL, Va. (WWBT) – Police are searching for multiple suspects after employees of a Hopewell restaurant were injured during a robbery on Friday.
Around 7:30 a.m., officers were called to a robbery call at the K&L BBQ located in the 1400 block of Maple Street.
A restaurant employee who was there at the time of the robbery, Melissa Faulkner, says that as soon as she unlocked the back door, three men and one woman barged inside.
Faulkner explained that one person held a gun to her head while demanding the code to the safe.
“Before they put me in the cooler I just kept begging them, ‘Please don’t kill me, I have an 8-year-old son. Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me,’ I just kept telling them,” she explained.
Faulkner is also the granddaughter of the owners. She said that she had been opening the restaurant every morning for the last five years and never thought this would happen. Not much longer after she was held at gunpoint, another employee arrived.
“They instantly saw him and made him get down on the floor. They started kicking him in the back … then they pulled out a bunch of cable ties and tied our hands behind our back and they stuffed me and him in the walk-in cooler back there,” Faulkner explained.
When the owners arrived, Faulkner says that her 6 year-old cousin was with them, and the four masked individuals made him get on the ground too.
Faulkner said that the masked men kept demanding the code to the safe until the owner cracked.
“If he hadn’t had opened that safe, they would have killed all six of us in here,” she said.
Faulkner doesn’t believe this was a random robbery.
“They knew there must have been a safe here because that’s the first thing they asked me was the code for the safe,” she explained.
According to police, four people took money from the business and left the area.
“The preliminary investigation revealed that four armed masked individuals entered the business, assaulted several employees, resulting in injuries, and held them at gunpoint,” the Hopewell Police Department said.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Solvers at 804-541-2202 or provide their tip using the P3tips mobile app.
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