Powell
Affidavit: Nathaniel David Powell stole $200, fled in taxi
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KINGSTON — A borough resident is in custody in connection with the armed robbery of a Pierce Street convenience store Friday afternoon, Kingston Police said Saturday.
Nathaniel David Powell, 30, of Mercer Avenue, was apprehended Saturday after the incident in which he allegedly held up a Convenient Food Mart clerk and fled, getting into a taxicab a short distance away.
He faces four felony robbery counts.
According to an affidavit filed in the case:
Police responded to the store at 283 Pierce St. at 4:06 p.m. Friday after a report of an armed robbery committed by a male suspect.
Upon arrival, a clerk told police that a black male wearing a hooded jacket and a red bandanna over his mouth entered the store, approached the counter and repeated the phrase: “I have a gun, give me the money,” motioning to the clerk that he had a gun inside his coat.
The clerk said he opened the cash register and the man removed the cash, then ran out of the store onto Warren Avenue.
Surveillance footage reviewed by police showed the suspect running out onto Warren Avenue and getting into the rear passenger side door of a white taxi that drove away southbound on Warren Avenue.
Witnesses at the scene corroborated those events, police said, specifically identifying the cab as belonging to Burgit’s City Taxi.
Further investigation revealed that the suspect had fled with about $200 from the store.
Police later reviewed video surveillance footage from inside a Burgit’s Taxi that showed an individual matching the robbery suspect sitting in the back passenger seat. That footage was used to identify the suspect as Powell.
According to a post on the department’s Facebook page, Kingston Police took Powell into custody at about 6:12 p.m. Saturday on West Union Street. Powell was transported to police headquarters “where he was interviewed and admitted that he robbed the Convenient Food Mart,” the post indicates.
Powell was arraigned by District Justice James J. Haggerty and committed to the Luzerne County Correctional Facility in lieu of $100,000 bail to await further proceedings. A preliminary hearing has been set for April 8 before Haggerty.