MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A 46-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a failed jewelry store armed robbery where the suspect shot and killed himself, Woodbury authorities announced Sunday.
At 10:30 a.m. Saturday, police say a gunman entered Johnson Jewelers in Woodbury demanding what was in the display case.
An employee of the store said that at the same time a Woodbury police officer happened to drive through the parking lot. He said the robber started to panic and told him to get on the ground.
“At that point, I told him there’s a back door,” said Steven Johnson, of Johnson Jewelers. “I said it’s right straight back. So I saw him run to the back of the store. Then I heard a single gunshot.”
A few minutes later, police found a man in his 50′s who’d killed himself in the back of the store.
They believed the deceased suspect may have been with another man, who was driving a blue Chevy Impala.
Minneapolis police later located the vehicle witnessed leaving the scene of the robbery and alerted Woodbury police detectives, who arrested the suspect identified as Erick Larkin.
Larkin is now in custody at the Washington County Jail. Charges of first-degree aiding and abetting aggravated robbery are pending.
