Owner: Suspect filled out new client form before robbing hair salon
Story by Jesse Fray
Originally published 10:24 a.m., March 26, 2008
Updated 11:45 a.m., March 26, 2008
Debbie Duncan explains how self-defense classes helped her avoid a robbery. Watch her video interview here.
A Topeka business owner used techniques she learned from a self-defense course during a robbery at her hair salon.
Topeka Police arrested Derrick Buell, 23, Topeka, following the robbery of Kaw Valley Hair Co., 1106 NW Central.
At about 3:40 p.m. Tuesday, officers were called to the salon after a suspect took an unknown amount of money from the cash register.
The salon owner, Debbie Duncan, said Buell filled out a new client form before the robbery.
“That scared him more than anything,” Duncan said. “Because when the alarm went off, I set the alarm off, he had to go back and get that so they wouldn’t know who he was, but they caught him anyhow.”
Other law enforcement agencies were in the area and located Buell in the 1200 block of NW VanBuren. He matched the suspect description, police spokeswoman Kristi Pankratz said in a news release this morning.
Buell was taken to police headquarters for questioning, arrested and booked into the Shawnee County Jail on charges of robbery and possession of drug paraphernalia, she said.
Our 49 News Crime Tracker found there have been 16 business robberies in Topeka so far this year.
Duncan said her salon is a “sociable place.”
“This has never happened here before, we hope it never happens again,” she said. “It’s a safe place.”
Duncan said she stayed calm, tripped the alarm, and didn’t do what the suspect demanded, all techniques she remembered from the self-defense course.
“I was glad I had taken that class,” said Duncan.
Duncan said she never saw the suspect with a weapon. No one was injured.
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