Posted on 08/27/2004 3:28:46 PM PDT by Theodore R.
Store owner finds out he chased, tied up former basketball star
By Valarie Honeycutt Spears And Jerry Tipton
HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITERS
Gas station owner Bobby Schneider didn't know or care that the robbery suspect he tackled to the ground was once the nation's leading freshman scorer in men's college basketball.
After watching the suspect push a cashier to her knees and grab handfuls of cash, Schneider chased him for a half-mile, then borrowed a dog leash to hogtie him until police arrived.
Only then did Schneider learn that the suspect in the first robbery of his family's BP Lansdowne Service Center in 32 years was Erik Brown, a former basketball standout in Kentucky.
Brown, now 24, played at Lexington's Bryan Station High School, Morehead State University and the University of Louisville.
People closest to Brown in the basketball world couldn't explain yesterday how a young man so full of promise could end up criminally charged in connection with two BP gas station robberies.
"Erik was a good kid," said Bobby Washington, who coached Brown at Bryan Station in the mid-1990s. "He got good grades. I don't remember having a serious, serious problem."
Brown pleaded not guilty yesterday in Fayette District Court to two counts of second-degree robbery. If convicted he faces up to 20 years in prison.
At the Lansdowne BP gas station on Tates Creek Road, it was 2 p.m. Wednesday when a tall customer laid a dollar bill and a package of double-dipped chocolate peanuts on the counter.
Cashier Theresa Jones opened the cash register drawer, looked at the man wearing a do-rag covered by a black Adidas cap, and said, "That will be 63 cents."
The 6-foot-5 man reached 4 feet across the counter, pushed Jones down and dug his fist into the cash register, grabbing all the 20s and the 10s and even some of the fives, she said. She saw no weapon.
Jones yelled "Bobby, Bobby Bobby," bringing owner Bobby Schneider, 37, out of an adjacent office. Schneider grabbed at the man's shirt, but the robber fled out the door and had begun to drop money.
Schneider said he chased the man for a half-mile behind the Lansdowne Shopping Center and into residential yards on Malabu Drive and Overbrook Circle. Schneider said both he and the suspect ran out of breath and faced each other for a moment, bent over and gasping for air.
Schneider said the suspect handed him cash and said, "Here's your money. Just leave me alone."
About that time, Danny Shouse, a BP mechanic, caught up to the men and ordered the suspect to "hit the ground." Schneider said that when the suspect threw a punch instead, Schneider hit him in the mouth with his fist. Schneider and Shouse then tackled the suspect, who kept asking them to "just let me get up."
That's when someone walking a dog offered the leash.
In retrospect, Schneider said yesterday that he chased the robber because he caught a glimpse of the cashier sinking to her knees and he feared she was injured.
"It was the heat of the moment, but I'd do it again," Schneider said.
However, Schneider would not want his employees to risk their safety again. And Lexington police recommend that robbery victims not try to apprehend suspects themselves.
Brown also was charged yesterday with a similar robbery Tuesday at the BP on Locust Hill at Richmond Road. He has no prior criminal record in Fayette County.
Brown splashed onto the college basketball scene as a freshman for Morehead State. During the 1998-99 season, he was the leading freshman scorer in college basketball (19.3 points a game) and was named the Ohio Valley Conference's Freshman of the Year.
"I was surprised when I heard the news," Morehead State Coach Kyle Macy said when asked about the arrest. "We never had any problems. He was a real good kid when he was here."
Macy did suspend Brown from practice for a number of days to improve his classroom performance. Macy described the suspension as a means to get a player's attention.
"Every freshman coming in, they get that new freedom," Macy said of Brown's academic stumble. "Nothing unusual."
After one season for Morehead State, Brown made a highly publicized transfer to Louisville.
Brown again made an academic misstep at Louisville, but went on to earn a degree in sociology and score 736 points in three seasons.
"Erik was a good guy, there's no doubt about it," said U of L spokesman Kenny Klein. "He wouldn't be playing for Coach (Rick) Pitino if he wasn't doing the right thing. During the time he was here, we had people with issues who weren't with the program any longer. Coach doesn't keep people around if they're not doing" the right thing.
Klein said he was unaware of university police records showing Brown being arrested for possession of marijuana in his U of L dorm room in March 2000. Those charges were subsequently dropped.
Denny Crum was Louisville's coach when Brown sat out the 1999-2000 season as a transfer and played as a sophomore in 2000-2001. Brown became academically ineligible at the end of the 1999 fall semester. He did not regain his eligibility until the end of the fall semester of 2000. That delayed his debut for U of L until after the first seven games of the 2000-2001 season. Pitino became Brown's coach there in fall 2001.
"Really from that point, he turned things around and had been going to class and doing the right thing," Klein said.
Brown remained in the Fayette County Detention Center last night on a $10,000 bond.
Sad, sad story...
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