"Gimme all the money from the register or I'll blow your head off!!"

"Ummm, that's not a gun, I can see your thumb sticking out."

"It is a gun!"

"Sorry, I don't believe you."







"Visible thumb betrays would-be store robber
A clerk could see that the suspect was unarmed and using his finger as a gun.

By TOM ALEX
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

December 15, 2006
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A robbery at a Git-N-Go Convenience Store on the south side of Des Moines on Thursday morning was called off for lack of convincing theatrics.

"Well, I could tell he didn't have a gun," said Terry Cook, a clerk at the store at 2140 S.E. Park Ave. "I knew it was his finger. I could see his thumb sticking out of his coat pocket."

The would-be robber, who acted tough and even inserted a harsh expletive in his demand for cash, wanted to argue.

It is a gun, he told Cook.

No it isn't, Cook said.

The frustrated suspect left the store but paused a moment in the parking lot, perhaps to go over in his mind the argument he'd just lost. He disappeared just before police arrived.

How could a robber have been so careless as to leave a thumb sticking out?

"Think about it," said Police Sgt. David Coy. "When you play cops and robbers how do you hold your hand? With the thumb sticking up, right?"

When it was all over, the reality of what he'd just done began to sink in, Cook said.

Until the police arrived he had reacted instinctively. Given time to think about it, he realized it was a frightening experience.

Still, Cook said: "I know what a gun looks like. I'm not stupid."

No arrests were reported immediately. Detectives will view video from a surveillance camera to try to identify the suspect."