EVERETT – A 54-year-old cancer patient was so worried about people stealing his painkillers that he packed them along with him to chemotherapy appointments.
But he couldn’t protect his medicine Friday afternoon when four young men stormed into his Tulalip Avenue home and robbed him of his drugs at gunpoint, Everett police said.
“They told him that if he called the police, they would kill him,” said neighbor Kalvin Schroder, who drives the man to his chemotherapy appointments in Seattle each week.
Everett police officers tried using dogs to track the robbery suspects. No arrests were made.
Everett police Lt. David Fudge said evidence was taken from the home for fingerprinting and that the investigation was continuing.
“This does not appear to be a random incident, and this particular victim was targeted,” Fudge said Friday night.
It was the second time in the past six months that the man’s house had been broken into and his cancer drugs stolen, police said.
The cancer patient was alone about 5:30 p.m. when the four armed men burst into his home, police said. The thieves gathered his painkillers and ran away.
The man walked across the street to Schroder’s house to call 911.
Neighbor Sue Anderson didn’t hear the robbery, but she saw three of the suspects running away afterward. Two of them were tall and thin, and one was short and chubby, she said. The short man was carrying what looked like a pillowcase.
“It’s pretty scary,” Anderson said. “We think this is a safe neighborhood. We all try to look out for each other.”
Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.
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