Robber gets away, but mobile meth lab doesn't

Police searching for a man who robbed a pony keg for cigarettes on Wednesday night and knocked down a female employee got more than they bargained for – a mobile meth lab.

The strong-arm robbery of the Patterson Pony Keg, 100 Patterson Road near Wilmington Avenue, occurred at about 6:30 p.m., Dayton Sgt. Kelly Hamilton said. The robber took several packs of cigarettes by force but did not use a weapon, Hamilton said.

“The clerk tried to detain him, and she was drug by him outside the store,” Hamilton said. “She fell, struck her head, but did not require medical attention.”

The woman’s husband, who happened to be in the store, chased the robber on foot but lost him, Hamilton said, noting that police have the bicycle and it has been processed for fingerprints.

The elusive suspect prompted police to issue an alert for a man wearing a hoodie. An officer in the area spotted a man riding a bicycle near the crime scene who “somewhat matched the description of the robber,” Hamilton said.

Problem was, the man on the bike wasn’t the suspected robber, but he turned out to be rolling with what was described as a mobile methamphetamine lab in a plastic bag he was carrying, Hamilton told News Center 7 reporter Jim Noelker.

“He was matching the description of the suspect somewhat, but it turned out to be a totally different person,” Hamilton said.

Officers arrested the man and took the meth-making materials back to the parking lot of the pony keg for analysis and to call in a company to dispose of the materials.

As it turned out, police discovered that the man they arrested had a small amount of heroin on his person (a capsule) and that there was an arrest warrant for him out of Beavercreek.