Pharmacy robbery ends in deadly shooting

EAST HARLEM (WABC) -- Police shot and killed a suspected armed robber outside an East Harlem pharmacy on Thursday morning.

On the cell phone video you can hear the gunshots and you can hear the panic in the voices of the witnesses across the street from the pharmacy at a gas station.

Right before their eyes, a pharmacy robbery had come to a dramatic end.

Part of it was captured in some NYPD surveillance video from a nearby public housing complex.

In it you see uniformed officers confronting one of the suspects as he exits the RX Pharmacy on First Avenue.

He's got his hands up and they move him off to the side.

Then, suspect number two comes out.

According to police he's 23-year-old Rudy Wyatt.

He's armed and investigators say he was pulling the trigger of his 32-caliber gun.

"I was at the register," said Steven Wang, a pharmacy employee.

Steven Wang works in the pharmacy.

He was inside when the suspects first stormed in.

He says they were looking for Oxycodone and Percocet.

Those are drugs that are fueling crime sprees at pharmacies across the country.

According to police Rudy Wyatt has been linked to other area robberies.

Law enforcement sources confirm that this is Wyatt robbing another pharmacy.

Rarely do robberies end like this one did with a suspect storming out with a gun pointed at police.

Rudy Wyatt ran across the street and out of view of the camera.

He was shot and killed by a retired NYPD lieutenant who was pumping his gas at the BP gas station.

The cell phone camera captured the gunshots that marked the end of the chase for one of the suspects.

The other suspect got away.

There have been at least three other similar pharmacy robberies in the same neighborhood recently, according to New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said.

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new york city, east harlem, crime, police shooting, robbery, new york news, jeff pegues

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