Wal-Mart robbers 12/11/12

Published 12:00 am Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Suspected Wal-Mart robbers in Arkansas jail

By Rupert Howell

Two Memphis men accused of armed robbery at Batesville Wal-Mart are under arrest in Osceola, Arkansas where they turned themselves in following a U.S. Marshals Service visit at the home of one of their mothers.

Daniel Robinson and Tyrone Bernard, both with Memphis addresses, are being held in Osceola where Batesville Police Detective Paul Shivers said they turned themselves in after the Marshals Service went looking for them in Memphis.

Shivers said that Clint Roberson with the U.S. Marshals Service, working through Panola County Sheriff’s Department, was contacted and used that federal agency to pursue leads in Memphis.

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Roberson said Monday, “We inadvertedly made them do the right thing (turn themselves in), but we’ll take positive results any way we can get them.”

Shivers said the couple faces charges from 12 different agencies with Roberson saying those agencies cover Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi.

Charges include armed robbery at Batesville Wal-Mart, burglary of a display case, grand larceny and felony shoplifting at the other locations.

A traffic stop in Collierville may have been the break according to one law official who said a crime was apparently underway when law enforcement there checked on a vehicle on side of the road with two juveniles. Those two juveniles may have alerted the two suspects, with whom they were riding, while they were committing another crime in progress. An unattended shopping cart in the nearby Wal-Mart resembled the makings of a crime similar to other grab and run crimes allegedly committed by the pair.

On Wednesday, November 9 the pair allegedly held an employee at gunpoint at the Batesville store and robbed the store of iPads, fleeing through an emergency exit.

A second employee was chased off by the gunman police said citing video of the incident.

Shivers said the Batesville incident was the only one of the 12 where a gun was used.

Batesville Police Chief Tony Jones said the pair tried to turn themselves in to Memphis Police Department and noted that at least one of them had a long list of viloations. They wound up in Osceola where one of the crimes was thought to have been committed, according to Shivers.

Jones thought that the couple may be turned over to Batesville as the most serious charge will be the local armed robbery.