The second suspect in last month’s armed robbery of a 7-Eleven convenience store where two accused robbers punched and kicked a store clerk, and threw a broom at him was arrested Sunday during a traffic stop.
The blue Ford F-150 pickup 29-year-old Matthew Scott Head reportedly drove near North Dixie Boulevard and 44th Street matched the description of the vehicle tipsters described for police following the robbery that occurred Jan. 24, Odessa Police Department spokesman Cpl. Steve LeSueur said.
Head and another suspect, 24-year-old Cory Lance, are accused of entering the store at about 5 p.m. Jan. 24 and robbing it of beer and cigarettes when they reportedly jumped over the counter and assaulted the store clerk, LeSueur said.
OPD officers found Head in the driver’s seat when they pulled him over and arrested Head on a warrant accusing him of aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony, and on four active misdemeanor warrants.
Head, 1412 W. 24th St., was being held Tuesday at the Ector County Detention Center on $50,000 bond. Head’s arrest comes less than a week after Lance turned himself in to the OPD for his suspected role in the robbery.
Lance, 5024 N. Dixie Blvd., was also being held Tuesday at the county jail on $100,000 bond.
Dispatchers sent officers Jan. 24 to the 7-Eleven store, 2700 N. Dixie Blvd., when they received a panic alarm. The store clerk told officers that two men entered the business and assaulted him when they robbed the items, LeSueur said.
A probable cause affidavit reported that a broom was used in the assault, but a video surveillance camera inside the convenience store showed footage of one of the suspects vaulting over the store counter and grabbing what looked like a pack of cigarettes from behind the clerk, who tried stopping him.
The second suspect jumps atop the counter and strikes the clerk in the face while the other suspect grabs a broom and throws it at the clerk during the commotion. At one point the clerk was caught on film kicking at one of the suspects when he was standing on the counter. Both suspects are then seen running out of the convenience store.
OPD investigators released the surveillance video to the public through social media and received a number of tips implicating Head and Lance as the robbery suspects.
The footage shows both Head and Lance first being dropped off the 7-Eleven location by a driver, later identified as 24-year-old Mason Lance, of a white pickup with a double cab before the robbery occurred. Lance dropped off the two suspects when they “became aggressive” with him, a probable cause affidavit reported.
LeSueur declined to specify whether Mason Lance is related to Cory Lance as the investigation into the robbery remains active, but said that the OPD is no longer charging anyone in connection with the crime.
