Recorder Staff
GREENFIELD – Police say they have charged a 29-year-old East Falmouth man with robbing JC’s Market on New Year’s Day.
Randy Gratton was located and arrested at 32 Water St. on Monday about 4:30 p.m., according to a police department Facebook post this morning, in which they report Gratton was charged with unarmed robbery and assault and battery on a teller and then taken to the police station, booked and given his rights. He confessed to the robbery during an interview after the booking, according to police. He was taken to the Franklin County House Jail pending bail or arraignment Tuesday morning.
Lt. William R. Gordon said this morning that the police “are 100-percent for that store – don’t rob JC’s Market, or we’re gonna catch you.”
The Conway Street market was robbed about 8 p.m. Sunday. No one was hurt, and there wasn’t any fear of violence during the incident.
“There was no threat of a gun, no knife, or violence of any kind,” owner Bruce Bednarski assured his customers from behind the store’s counter Monday morning. JC’s Market sells beer, wine, snacks and other food items.
Bednarski said the crime “happened in seconds.” Apparently, the alleged thief waited until the store attendant’s back was turned in the middle of a transaction, grabbed money from a recently opened cash drawer and ran out the door.
Police said he lunged over the counter and took all the $20 bills out of the cash drawer, and while doing so, “he assaulted the store clerk.”
Police said their investigation pointed to a suspect caught on the store’s video surveillance described as a white male approximately 6 feet, 2 inches tall and weighing 180 pounds, with short brown facial hair and short brown hair, wearing a baseball cap, dark colored leather jacket on with gray sweat pants. Officers, with the help of the Montague police dog, searched the area after the robbery but were not immediately able to find the perpetrator.
As police Sgt. Daniel McCarthy explained, patrol officers canvased streets and narrowed the search down to a few different houses.
“Essentially, through the detective bureau and patrol officers working together, we gathered information on a number of people who matched the description of the suspect,” McCarthy said, noting work put in by patrol officers to narrow down the search by canvassing the neighborhood.
Inside one of the vehicles, officers found clothing that matched that seen in the surveillance video – inside the house, they found Gratton.
“It was really miraculous – a group effort between the detective bureau and patrol force,” McCarthy added.
Over the past few years, others have also stolen from JC’s Market, but didn’t get away with it. Most recently in 2013, police nabbed a man from Bernardston who robbed the store $100 using a BB gun.
“It’s discouraging. You try to be a nice guy and run a good store, and people take advantage of you,” Bednarski said about the recent theft.