KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Gladstone teenager said he was shocked at how quickly he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun after he thought he was just letting a group of strangers bum a cigarette.
Authorities on Wednesday said they have charged Marcellus Anderson, 20; Khadeem Lamar Fisher, 21; Antonio Hernandez with 1st degree robbery.
Nineteen-year-old Andrew Hansen said he stopped at Happy Rock Smoke Shop at 72nd and North Oak Trafficway after work Monday to buy a pack of cigarettes. He said it was still light outside just after 8 p.m. when he was walking back out to his car when he said a group of four men pulled up in a van. Hansen said the group started a casual conversation about cigarettes, then the side door slid open, and one of the men pulled out a gun.
“It didn’t take them more than 30 seconds to actually act. And then when they did, the back door of the van just slid open and I saw the gun,” Hansen said.
The teen said he told the men he didn’t have any money and showed them his empty wallet. He says they took his phone and the cigarettes he’d just bought from the smoke shop. He ran back inside to call police.
“We gave him the phone, let him call the police, then next thing we know the police were all up here,” Happy Rock Smoke Shop employee Nathan Magrone said.
Hansen also said, “I walked in here, grabbed the phone, called the cops, and before I could hang up the phone, a helicopter and six squad cars were flying down North Oak.”
Officers arrested four men at 169 Highway and Barry Road just before 9 p.m. on Monday.
“They looked like me, I mean they look like normal kids. It wasn’t like they looked like drug addicts or gang bangers or anything, one of them went to high school with me!” Hansen said.
Magrone said of the robbers: “Obviously they just didn’t care what they were doing, didn’t care that they were putting other people’s lives in danger, like I said, I’m glad they’re in custody.”
Hansen said he doesn’t know if the gun was loaded or not, but he’s glad it wasn’t used and that the men said robbed him are behind bars. He said,
“I’ll remember it for a very, very long time, that’s for sure,” he said.
Each suspect is held on a $200,000 cash bond.
