A Spokane man has been charged with robbing a downtown Yakima convenience store of gasoline at gunpoint.
Yakima County prosecutors charged Don Juan Perry, 53, with second-degree robbery and second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. The latter charge stems from his prior felony conviction for taking a motor vehicle without permission in Spokane County in 2017.
Perry, who is being held in the Yakima County jail in lieu of $10,000 bail, is accused of brandishing a gun as he demanded a convenience store clerk allow him to pump gasoline Oct. 24.
Police were called to the AM/PM station at 601 E. Yakima Ave. for a robbery around 1:45 p.m. A store employee told a police dispatcher that a man had fired a shot into the air in a dispute over gasoline, according to a probable cause affidavit.
When officers arrived, Perry told officers there was a disagreement about gas but it was resolved, and he suddenly drove off, the affidavit said. Police initially stopped the van in the 600 block of East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, but Perry drove off again and stopped on North Fair Avenue near Target, where he was arrested.
The store employee told police that Perry came in with a CashApp credit card and tried to purchase $40 worth of gasoline. When the card didn’t go through, Perry then had him run the card for $39, the affidavit said, before going outside.
Then, the store employee said he heard a gunshot and saw Perry standing with a revolver demanding that the employee unlock the gas pump, the affidavit said. Perry, after pumping $10 worth of gas, then drove around the parking lot to another pump, displayed the handgun and demanded the pump be turned on, and he pumped another $10 worth of gasoline. He repeated his demand and again pumped $10 worth of gas, the affidavit said.
Police saw a firearm on the floor of the van, the affidavit said.
The store was the site of an April 2017 robbery where store employee Vikram Jaryal was shot to death. The case remains unsolved.
