A Revere man has been charged in federal court of robbing two Greater Boston convenience stores in the span of a week.
Jaquan Barrows, 26, was charged in federal court in Boston Wednesday with two counts of robbery interfering with interstate commerce and two counts of using and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. The robberies are to have taken place in Revere and Everett, with the latter occurring last week.
Federal prosecutors are charging these robberies under the Hobbs Act, which according to federal law “prohibits actual or attempted robbery or extortion affecting interstate or foreign commerce ‘in any way or degree.’”
Barrows is first alleged to have hit Wonderland Convenience Store on North Shore Road in Revere at around 7:20 a.m. on March 29.
There, the feds say, Barrows walked in wearing “dark clothes,” gloves, a facemask and “an orange safety vest,” pulled out a silver handgun and demanded the clerk hand over all the money in the till.
When the clerk refused, according to the law enforcement affidavit filed to support the charges, Barrows walked around to the till, emptied it of its contents and then demanded the clerk’s own money. The clerk handed over the $40 in his wallet and his iPhone and Barrows allegedly returned the favor by cracking him in the head with his pistol.
The robber soon disposed of the phone, according to the affidavit, as police would track it down based on the victim’s Apple ID in a marsh area on the northbound side of North Shore Road between Bay Road and Ellerton Street in Revere, about a half-mile away from the convenience store.
The next robbery came sometime after 4 a.m. on April 4 at a 7-Eleven located in the 500-block of Ferry Street in Everett.
The story is similar, but without the crack to the head. The clerk forked over the $400 or $500 in the till, but refused to hand over his cell phone. Barrows allegedly told him not to call police and then fled the scene.
Police identified Barrows as their suspect after tracking the white Honda Pilot with front fender damage through various surveillance systems and noting the plate number. That tied the car to a Revere woman known to police because they had to respond to “multiple” domestic disturbances between her and Barrows in the past.
Police say Barrow admitted to the robberies and said that he struck the clerk in the head at the first one because, as the affidavit states, “BARROWS said that he understood that a person in (the clerk’s) situation would be fearful for their life, which in turn made BARROWS fear that (the clerk) could try to harm him.”
