Washington law enforcement officials issued warrants for a pair of teenagers in connection with a string of cannabis retail robberies, including one involving a fatal shooting at the World of Weed dispensary March 19 in Tacoma.
RELATED: Washington Dispensary Worker Fatally Shot During Robbery
The Tacoma Police Department identified 16-year-old and 15-year-old boys who are wanted in at least 10 armed robberies in Pierce and King counties, according to The News Tribune. As of March 26, neither teenager was in custody.
Specifically, Pierce County prosecutors charged one of the suspects with first-degree murder and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm, according to the news outlet. The former charge is in connection to the March 19 fatal shooting of 29-year-old dispensary worker Jordan Brown, from Gig Harbor.
That was the third fatal incident involving a dispensary robbery in less than a week in the western part of the state. The other two involved the deaths of suspected robbers—one killed by police, and the other by an armed dispensary ID checker.
Prosecutors expect to file additional charges against the two teenagers for four additional dispensary robberies in Tacoma and one in Pierce County. The boys are also suspected in five robberies in King County, according to The News Tribune.
Police were able to identify the teens because one of them has a prosthetic leg and they had been arrested Feb. 22, after allegedly robbing a pawn shop in Federal Way, according to the news source. They were released from jail and placed on home detention, but they had cut off their home detention monitoring devices three days before the March 19 World of Weed shooting, according to law enforcement officials.
A third suspect acting as the teenagers’ lookout with a getaway vehicle had not been identified as of March 26, according to The News Tribune.
