Crime & Safety

Police Searching for Armed Gas Station Robber

The Mini Mart employee said he "went blank" when a young man demanded money and showed a gun.

Upper St. Clair police are still searching for the man who held up the St. Clair Mini Mart last week at gunpoint, according to an employee.

Tissa Dissa, of Bethel Park, said he was working behind the cash register around 8:15 p.m. last Monday when a young, white, skinny man in his early 20s demanded money.

Dissa said he didn't take the man serious at first.

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But then the robber reached into his jacket, took out something covered in a cloth and revealed a gun.

"I went blank after that," Dissa said. "I just gave him the money."

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The man took off with more than $600 in a silver SUV, possibly a Mercedes SUV.

Dissa ran out of the gas station and asked a female customer who walked out of the store just before the robbery to help him remember the license plate number and provide a description of the robber to police, but she just drove away, he said.

Dissa, a husband and father of two, said he's working on his Ph.D. right now, and couldn't concentrate on his studies for days after the incident.

However, he believes the gas station is located in a safe area and hopes nothing like this will ever happen again.

Officers told Dissa a suspect with the same description robbed a gas station in Castle Shannon on the same night.

If you have any information about the robbery, call Upper St. Clair police at 412.833.7500.


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