Inset: Keondre Simmons (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The Shake Shack in Arizona where Keondre Simmons allegedly robbed his co-workers (Google Maps).
An Arizona Shake Shack employee is accused of calling in sick, then returning to the same restaurant disguised as an armed robber and holding two co-workers at gunpoint, according to police.
Keondre Simmons, 33, was arrested after allegedly showing up two days later for his next scheduled shift at the Shake Shack in Scottsdale’s Kierland Commons. He now faces charges including armed robbery, aggravated assault and kidnapping.
Court documents obtained by local Fox affiliate KSAZ say Simmons called out of his shift around midnight on Aug. 3. He returned to the restaurant hours later to rob the place, with an employee hearing a delivery bell and opening a door to let him in, according to police.
Court documents say one employee opened the door after hearing a delivery bell, believing a scheduled delivery had arrived. Instead, authorities allege, the masked suspect pointed a firearm at the worker, forced him back inside and walked him at gunpoint to the restaurant’s walk-in cooler, where he locked him inside.
Investigators said Simmons allegedly used a cooler latch in a way that suggested inside knowledge of the restaurant’s operations. Police say he then located the manager on duty and demanded access to the store’s safe.
Simmons allegedly stole roughly $2,800 in cash before forcing the manager into the walk-in cooler with the other employee. Both workers were able to get out by using the cooler’s internal safety release, but the ordeal was not over, authorities said.
According to court documents, Simmons confronted the employees again, marched them into the restaurant office and ordered them to kneel. He allegedly destroyed their cellphones and the office phone before leaving the Shake Shack.
The two employees later told police the robber’s “build, hairline, voice and mannerisms” resembled Simmons, court documents state. They also said the gunman seemed highly familiar with the restaurant’s layout, equipment locations and the mechanism used to secure the cooler door.
Security personnel at Kierland Commons told police they saw a masked man arriving at and leaving the Shake Shack before and after the robbery, according to the court documents.
Simmons was arrested on Aug. 5 when he returned to the restaurant. He is being held in Maricopa County on a $100,000 bond.
The post Shake Shack employee’s co-workers recognized him by his ‘hairline’ when he locked them in a cooler and robbed them: Cops first appeared on Law & Crime.
