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CONCORD, Calif. (Cristina Rendon/KTVU) - Police in Concord said two men who robbed a marijuana delivery driver at gunpoint is the latest in a string of similar crimes the city has seen since April.
Lt. Nick Gartner said a medicinal marijuana delivery driver was held up after he tried to deliver marijuana to a house on the 1800 block of Carlotta Drive. The incident happened around 6:45 p.m. on Monday.
Gartner said the delivery driver knocked on the door of a home and the homeowner told the driver he had not placed any order. As the driver returned to his car two suspects were waiting for him. Investigators believe the suspects called in the bogus order using a random address.
“One of the suspects pointed a handgun at the driver,” Gartner said. “The driver dropped the marijuana he was there to deliver and ran away.”
The suspects reportedly took the pot and tried to break into the delivery driver’s car, but were unsuccessful. A neighbor heard the commotion and called police. Gartner said the suspects and delivery driver were gone when officers arrived, but investigators tracked down the driver and he is cooperating.
Residents in the neighborhood had mixed reactions about the incident.
“It’s kind of crazy,” Tim Hovland, a neighbor, said. “A neighborhood should be a safe place.”
“Everybody’s neighborhood has got some kind of skeletons going on,” Dave Blair, another neighbor, said. “It’s just going to happen. It doesn’t matter where.”
Investigators are looking for two suspects who are possibly in a beat up 2-door silver car. One is described as a Black man with a thin build, about 6’ tall, ranging in age from 25 to 30 years old. The second suspect is described as a Latino man, bald, about 5’ 11”, weighing roughly 200 pounds.
Gartner said the incident is the seventh robbery of a medicinal marijuana delivery driver in Concord since April. In each case, the dispensary failed to verify the client ahead of time.
“Unfortunately when it comes to these mobile delivery services they can be targeted in this way if these companies don’t take necessary provisions to safeguard their drivers by having common sense practices in place,” Gartner said.
KTVU Reporter Cristina Rendon spoke with one medicinal marijuana delivery driver who has been held up before. He said he was called out for an order near the Concord drive-in theater. He said he was rushed by two people who had been hiding in bushes when he arrived. His company will now only go to an address on a driver’s license or California ID and they require the client to send in a picture or selfie of the client with the driver’s license.
Cities like Denver and Seattle told KTVU they do not see these types of crimes because medicinal marijuana deliveries are not allowed. Other Bay Area law enforcement agencies said they expect robberies to increase when recreational marijuana becomes legal in January.