Man arrested after alleged robbery of police informant

March 31, 2007|By MATTHEW UMSTEAD

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Authorities arrested one of five men allegedly involved in the robbery of a confidential informant who was deployed early Friday by police to execute an undercover crack cocaine deal behind a Martinsburg restaurant, according to court records.

Darryl Robert Lamont Carroll, 18, of 307 Potexaco Ave. in Baltimore, was charged with aiding and abetting a strong-armed robbery and obstructing police, according to records. He was arraigned by Magistrate Jim Humphrey, who set a $30,000 bond for the case and was in the Eastern Regional Jail.

On Friday about 2 a.m., Carroll and four other men took $130 from the informant after agreeing to meet behind Applebee's restaurant off Foxcroft Avenue to buy crack cocaine, according to a complaint filed by Detective Sgt. Kevin Miller of the Martinsburg Police Department.

The foiled purchase initially was to have happened behind the neighboring Wendy's restaurant, but was changed minutes beforehand, according to Miller's complaint.

After taking the informant's money and not providing the drugs, the men began running toward the nearby OfficeMax store, got into a maroon car parked nearby and sped away as members of the Eastern Panhandle Drug and Violent Crime Task Force approached, according to the complaint.

The vehicle then traveled south through the parking lots of OfficeMax, Applebee's and Wendy's, then onto the loop road around Martinsburg Mall and onto Mall Drive, according to the complaint.

Task force officers followed the vehicle through several yards and then back on Foxcroft Avenue before turning onto King Street. Traveling east, the vehicle then turned left onto Red Hill Road, where Carroll and the others abandoned the vehicle and fled, according to the complaint.

Carroll was the only one of the men captured at the intersection of War Memorial Park Boulevard and Tennessee Avenue, according to the complaint.

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