Man pays for Anna’s Linens chair pads but demands register-sized refund at gunpoint

For the second time in three months, a store in Germantown’s Chelten Plaza was robbed at gunpoint.

The latest robbery involved a suspect wearing a leather Philadelphia Eagles jacket at Anna’s Linens around 7:20 p.m. Saturday.

The short, thin thirtysomething with a greying goatee purchased chair pads like a normal customer. But then, things went awry, as evidenced by a surveillance video released by Philadelphia police on Tuesday.

“After the transaction was complete,” police said, “the offender displayed a black semi-automatic handgun in his waistband and demanded the employee give him the money from the cash register.”

Given an unspecified amount of cash, the gunman then ran off in an unknown direction with chair pads in tow.

The suspect is described as a 5-foot 8-inch tall black man in his 30s wearing a silver-and-green leather jacket with a Philadelphia Eagles emblem on the back, dark knit cap, gray sweatpants and black-and-white sneakers.

This robbery comes almost three months to the day after a pair of armed men robbed the Deal$ variety store right next door in the shopping center which opened last December.

Police said Tuesday that there have been no arrests made in that case, for which the suspect descriptions don’t match.

Anyone with information about the suspects in either case is asked to call 911, the Northwest Detective Division at (215) 686-3353/54 or the tipsline at (215) 686-8477 (TIPS). Tips can also be texted to PPD TIP (773847) or submitted via the department’s website.