One suspect still out there after Vancouver pot shop is robbed

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – With the help of Surrey RCMP and Delta Police, Vancouver Police say three men have been arrested after a pot shop was robbed early last week.

Just before 9 p.m. on October 16th, several people armed with guns got into the Stressed and Depressed store on East 41st Avenue. The thieves took pot, cash and other items.

Police say one staff member was assaulted. “Obviously, this is a very traumatic and frightening incident for all of the staff involved,” explains VPD Sergeant Brian Montague.

He says they’re still looking for the woman involved in the robbery. “We do get robberies in Vancouver, we often don’t see it to quite this level and often it’s not captured on video. And it is a concern for the police when we see someone use that level of violence to not only threaten someone with a firearm, but punch them [and] assault them. [Those] behind the counter of these marijuana shops are generally young kids — 19, 20 or 21-years-old — many of them are just making their way through college and to have a gun shoved in your face, threatened to be killed, stabbed or shot and then punched is traumatic.”

Montague says investigators seized items from a few homes south of the Fraser River over the weekend that links the suspects to the crime. “The cash would be returned, but we can’t legally return an illegal product to a victim. So, if marijuana is recovered — then we have to put that in for evidence and then for destruction. We cannot provide it back to the victim.”

Police believe this specific pot shop has been robbed at least three times since early 2015.

Three charged in pot shop robbery

Darnel Matsui, 28, from Medicine Hat

• robbery with violence (firearm)
• pointing a firearm
• uttering threats
• using a firearm during the commission of an indictable offence
• unauthorized possession of a firearm

 

Hosea Smith, 26, from Calgary

• robbery with violence (firearm)
• assault

 

Cory Robert Ulmer Brown, 20, from Surrey

• robbery with violence (firearm)
• pointing a firearm
• using a firearm during the commission of an indictable offence
• unauthorized possession of a firearm

 

Anyone with information about this case or knows the whereabouts of the woman said to be involved is asked to call the VPD at 604.717.0613 or CrimeStoppers at 1.800.222.8477.