Five Halifax robberies in three weeks: ‘Do you know what this is? It’s a gun, idiot… Give me your money’
Don’t take the bus to a bank robbery.
That’s how police caught up with the man accused of committing five robberies on the Halifax Peninsula this spring.
The first call came in on January 28, when a man robbed the Smoke Shop next to the Superstore on the south side of Barrington Street.
The clerk told police that the robber entered the store dressed all in black, with a black face mask, sunglasses, black gloves and a hood pulled over his head.
“The man approached the counter and told her that he had a gun and that he wanted all the money from the money,” says the regional police detective. Craig Smith said in his application for a warrant in the case.
‘He would use it’
The servant paused and the robber repeated his demand. “He had a gun and if she didn’t give him the money he would use it,” Smith said.
She didn’t see his gun, but the robber’s left hand was in the right side of his jacket, “to indicate where the gun was and she could see a gun-shaped bulge,” the detective said.
The clerk described the robber as about six feet tall, with an average build and a raspy voice. She guessed he sounded about 60 years old and told police he got away with about $500 in cash.
Three days later, police responded to a robbery at Boyd’s Pharmasave on Agricola Street just before 3pm.
Surveillance footage shows how a man with a stocky build, dressed entirely in black, enters the pharmacy. “He had his face (completely) covered with some cloth mask,” Smith said.
Asked for ChapStick
The man asked the clerk where the ChapStick was, the detective said. The clerk pointed him in the right direction, and he gave her a geek and a tonie. When she took the money, “he went around the corner and told her he had a gun and to give him all the money,” Smith said.
The clerk told the robber that she couldn’t open the cash register without first taking the key, which was in another drawer. “But when she reached for the drawer, he yelled at her, ‘Don’t touch anything.'”
That’s when the manager “came out and started yelling at the suspect and telling him to go away,” the detective said.
The robber “ran toward him for a moment, then turned and ran out of the store, leaving the ChapStick and his three dollars behind.”
It was February 8 before the robber struck again, this time in the Lawtons on Spring Garden Road. He was wearing a light blue jacket this time, but the rest of his clothing was dark.
“butt of a firearm”
“The man was in possession of a black backpack and[the cashier]saw what she believed to be the butt of a firearm in the backpack,” Smith said.
The robber said, “Give me the money” and rushed to the cashier. “She gave him about $700 and the man fled.”
Surveillance video shows him emerging from the Robie Street exit and jumping over the concrete barrier into Camp Hill Cemetery. “The camera shows that the man takes off his light blue coat”, after which he disappears from sight,” said the detective.
Police later found the jacket at the cemetery. A police dog sniffed the jacket and found his gloves, pants and balaclava nearby.
A week later, a robber hit the nearby Royal Bank on Spring Garden Road. The manager described him as white and in his mid to late twenties, wearing a red Nike track top and pants with a black stripe down the arms.
The cashier noted that he was wearing an army green tuque and carrying a backpack.
‘Heist Pack’
“The suspect placed the grayish backpack on the counter, opened it, picked up a black object she thought was a firearm and said, ‘Do you know what this is? It’s a gun, you idiot,’ before you say, ‘Give me your money.’”
The cashier gave him eight $100 bills and “a robbery package” containing 10 $20 bills with registered serial numbers, Smith said in his filing to obtain a warrant filed in Halifax Provincial Court.
Police had a lot of surveillance footage of the robber at the time, but he is covered up and difficult to identify.
That’s when the detective asked Halifax Transit to review the February 15 surveillance video of their buses in the Spring Garden, Robie, Coburg Road and Public Gardens area, as well as Rainnie Drive, Ahern Avenue, Brunswick, Cornwallis and Gottingen from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm
On March 1, Smith received an email from a woman who works corporate security for the city advising the detective that his suspect was already on the 1375 bus when she began her review of the Feb. 15 surveillance footage at 2:25 p.m.
“As she exited the bus, she noticed the suspect was sticking out the hood of a camo hoodie from under his red tracksuit. She then found footage from the 1252 Bus showing a man crossing South Park Street onto Spring Garden Road at 3:37 p.m. in a camouflage tracksuit.
The detective asked Park Lane Mall for surveillance and sent them photos of his suspect in a camo suit taken just after he robbed the bank and crossed South Park.
‘No face coverings’
On March 6, the mall’s security supervisor provided police surveillance video of the same man walking down Park Lane. The detective was able to create still images of that, which showed his suspect “without a face covering in Park Lane Mall.”
The next day, just after midnight, Smith “sent a department-wide email” with the photos attached, asking all of his colleagues if they recognized the man.
Less than 18 hours later, Const. Kristin Katrinardottir emailed the detective back saying she had Kenneth Sykes, 51, in custody on another case.
“She identified him as the man pictured in the photos in my email,” Smith said.
Welcome housing program
The detective confirmed with the front desk clerk at the Holiday Inn Express on Parkland Drive that Sykes had checked into a room on the third floor of the hotel on March 1 for a month’s stay “under the Welcome Housing Program.”
Welcome Housing provides support to people in the Halifax area who are homeless.
Smith had a uniformed officer guard the chamber door while he convinced a justice of the peace to issue a search warrant.
The detective had some trouble getting one at first because some of his records seemed to be mixed up with another case, but he was eventually cleared to search the room.
Although Sykes was “only positively identified” in the bank robbery, “he is believed to be responsible for all four robberies,” Smith said.
“The modus operandi is consistent, never pulls a gun, but refers to a gun or shows part of a gun while demanding money,” the detective said.
Three hour window
“All the robberies take place on the Halifax Peninsula, and although on different dates, during a three-hour time window.”
The robber “maintains a similar disguise” and appears to use the same large backpack and black leather gloves twice in all but one of the robberies, Smith said.
Police seized a Russell Athletic backpack, a pair of black Dakota boots, a gray Champion camo jersey, a green Under Armor tuque, a pair of gray Champion camo joggers, a black DC tuque, a black zip-up hooded Nike sweatshirt, a black Harley Davidson tuque, and a black neck warmer from Sykes’ hotel room during their March 8 search.
By that afternoon they had already linked Sykes to a fifth robbery – the January 24 robbery of the Smoke Shop on Windsor Street, where a man said he had a gun and threatened staff before fleeing with cash and cigarettes.
Police filed 46 charges against Sykes related to all five robberies, including five counts of robbery with a firearm, possession of a weapon for dangerous purposes, careless use of a firearm, carrying a concealed firearm, unauthorized possession of a firearm , possession of a firearm knowing it is unauthorized, and disguising themselves on purpose. He also faces 10 counts of possession of a firearm while prohibited from doing so, and one count of mischief for allegedly damaging a vehicle parked in the Uniacke Street neighborhood on Feb. 19.
Sykes will be sentenced June 29 in Dartmouth County Court on two counts of theft of less than $5,000. The thefts happened last fall.
He is due to return to Halifax Provincial Court on July 4 for a pre-trial conference on the charges of the five robberies.
Between 1991 and 2013, Sykes was convicted of more than 30 crimes, including robbery, assault, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, making threats to cause death or bodily harm, fraud, failure to stop in an accident, escaping lawful custody, careless use of a firearm and burglary.
