Clerk Carlita Banks might have been more scared of the sweating man in the Bengals T-shirt if she knew he was already wanted for armed robbery by the time he entered Hyde Park Wine & Spirits Monday afternoon.
But she didn’t. She only knew he was trying to leave with a bottle-shaped bulge in his bright orange shorts.
“I said, ‘Dude, what’s in your pants?’” she recalled Tuesday night. “He said, ‘I’m a police officer. I have my gun.’ I said, ‘First off, you’re not a police officer.’ He said, ‘I’m undercover.’”
He did have a gun, she would learn moments later. As she blocked the door and a coworker took the stolen bottle of liquor from the man, he pulled a pistol out of his shorts.
“This fool just pulled a gun,” she remembered thinking. “He’s about to get caught. I want him caught right now.”
He wasn’t — and hasn’t been. He ran from the shop and fled in a getaway car, according to police. Despite multiple police departments circulating his picture Monday, he had not been arrested by Tuesday night.
Police believe the suspect is 36-year-old Robert Schneider, who stands 5-feet-10-inches and weighs about 200 pounds. He had robbed Kimmy’s Korner Grocery in Covington a little over an hour before he hit Hyde Park Wine & Spirits Monday, investigators said.
He was also suspected of robbing Saks Fifth Avenue in downtown Cincinnati at an earlier date.
Police said Schneider is considered armed and dangerous. Anyone who sees him or has information that could lead to his arrest should call police.
