Ventura County – Unless you’re in the habit of ordering a hot pizza for breakfast, any observer might well have been suspicious of the behavior of 31-year-old Camarillo resident Rashawn Laron Hurdle as he lurked around in the rear parking lot of his neighborhood Pizza Hut restaurant on the morning of Monday, October 5th.
Those suspicions would, as it turns out, have been more than reasonable, for it was at 9:45 a.m. when a Pizza Hut employee exited the rear of the restaurant and entered his vehicle with a bank deposit bag filled with cash and was suddenly confronted by Hurdle. According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Pete O’Sullivan, Hurdle summarily “knocked on the employee’s car door window and demanded he hand over the money.”
Parking lot behind the Pizza Hut where it all went down
Either defiant by nature or simply loyal to the interests of his restaurant management, the employee declined Hurdle’s offer to relieve him of the burden of carrying the cash, whereupon Hurdle revealed a handgun stuck in his waistband. Apparently unimpressed by a gun that wasn’t yet pointed at him, the employee put his car into gear, and commenced to back out of his parking space. Undoubtedly frustrated by his unreasonable robbery victim, Hurdle then smashed in the driver’s window, “reached into the vehicle and took the bank deposit bag” holding the restaurant’s cash receipts, and then fled from the area on foot.
Deputies responding to the employee-victim’s 911 call noticed a dark colored vehicle driving away from the area, but did not pursue. Just minutes later, a Camarillo Police Department detective, who was also responding to the call for help, spotted Hurdle standing at a nearby intersection, noting that he “appeared to be looking around frantically.” When the detective attempted to make contact with him, Hurdle took off running but was soon brought to a halt and was “detained” long enough for both the victim and the first-responding officers to make a positive identification.
Hurdle’s vehicle, parked nearby, was found to contain additional evidence of the robbery, and hurdle was transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on a charge of first degree armed robbery, with his bail set at $100,000.
Photo: Courtesy www.pizzahut.com
