A teenager was captured on tape holding up a Michigan petrol station while demanding money from the cashier.
The slender 12-year-old is shown patiently standing in line in Hartford, his hand in his bag, as a client ahead of him pays for petrol.
He pulls a 9mm pistol from his black backpack and demands money as he reaches the head of the queue.
The child discharges a bullet into the ceiling to ensure she perceives his request as real.
The woman behind the counter flinches, then hurriedly grabs a bag of cash from the safe and delivers it to the youngster, telling him to ‘Get out!’
As he walks away, the child tries to reload his rifle, but it jams. One of the bullet casings has fallen to the ground.
The youngster then walks out of the room as if nothing has occurred.
911 dispatchers got the report about the armed robbery at the Marathon gas station on East Main Street, only one block from the police station, shortly before 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
Minutes afterwards, officers arrived to arrest the youngster.
On Thursday, he was arrested without incident by Hartford Police Chief Tressa Beltran and charged with armed robbery, assault with a dangerous weapon, and discharge of a handgun in Van Buren County Family Court.
Before retrieving the handgun from his grandfather’s locked safe, officers think the boy told another student at his school about his plan to commit the armed robbery.
The child’s legal guardian, the grandfather, informed authorities he had no idea his grandson had access to the safe.
