Dispensary employee locks out robber

FRESNO — Fresno police on Wednesday booked a 20-year-old local man who tried to rob a pot dispensary in northwest Fresno the day before by posing as one of their patients. Shawn Michael Kersey, 20, allegedly tried to hold up the Central Valley Collective, a medical marijuana dispensary located in the 640 block of West Shaw Avenue, on Tuesday afternoon. Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said the suspect walked into the store around 2 p.m. to demand marijuana. A second unidentified suspect was with Kersey at the time of the robbery attempt.
Mims said the employee being robbed retreated to a room inside the office where the marijuana was kept and locked the door behind him, foiling the robbery attempt.
“It was actually a good thing for him to do,” Mims said of the employee. “He realized when he was going into the place where the marijuana was being kept, he had an opportunity to keep himself safe and lock the bad guys out.”
Investigators also believe that there was a second suspect involved in the attempted robbery. That man is being described as a heavyset black male. No other suspect information was available.
After the gunman was locked out of the business, he then ran into the Old Fig Garden neighborhood near the dispensary to escape, but was captured by police a short time later.
Kersey was booked into Fresno County jail and is being charged with armed robbery, burglary, firearm possession and parole violations.