CHARLOTTE, N.C.-- Two men robbed Salvation Army workers who were unloading cash from kettles Friday, stealing between three and four thousand dollars.
“We had two gunman come in and tell us to get on the ground, and they took all of the kettles they could find,” said Lt. Matt Trantham. "When the gunman said ‘Hit the floor,’ I laid down and immediately thought, ‘What should I do, what should I say?’ "
The men stole cash from 13 kettles that had just been brought in from south Charlotte locations around Johnston Road, Rea Road, and the Ballantyne area. The kettles had just been unlocked and emptied, and were being returned to the truck for the next day’s bell-ringers.
Trantham said the robbers were in and out in under three minutes. “It all happened very quick,” he said. “The gunman asked, ‘Where’s the money?’ I told him, ‘On the table.’ And so he took it and was gone.”
Police said the men got away in a squarish, older model Jeep Cherokee.
Trantham said the biggest loss is that those kettles won’t be able to collect donation now – a loss of several thousand dollars a day, potentially.
“We lose the opportunity to have the kettles out so that folks can see that we are still serving the community, we're still raising donations -- because everything that goes in the pot we give back,” he said.
Bell ringers at Park Road Shopping center just shook their heads when they heard someone stole the kettles others had spent the day collecting.
“We stand out here in the cold and ring bells to try to get money for Salvation Army, somebody steals it –“ said Joe Smith. “That to me is about as low as you can go.”
One customer whose 3-year-old son dropped in their donation agreed. “I think it’s a terrible thing to do around the holidays,” agreed Lynn Wakefield.
Trantham said the two men stole from their neighbors in the community. “Neighbors who give money and trust and faith that the Salvation Army is going to do their best with it and we commit to do the most good with what we receive,” he said.
But Trantham said the crime wouldn’t steal the Christmas spirit from Salvation Army workers. “Christmas is not going to not come,” he said, “and we need to be out there showing that we're still going to do our job. We're still going to do what we're called to do, which is serve our community.”
