by Andrew Fleming
A Surrey man is in custody following a violent robbery at a Vancouver marijuana dispensary earlier this month.
Cory Robert Ulmer Brown, 20, is facing a total four charges in relation to the Oct. 16 armed robbery at the Stressed and Depressed Association dispensary on East 41 Avenue and Kingsway.
The entire incident was caught on several surveillance cameras.
The Surrey RCMP and Delta Police raided two homes in Surrey and one in Delta on Oct. 22, arresting three men. The woman has not yet been located.
Brown is known to police and has previously been found guilty of impaired driving and driving while prohibited.
Hosea Smith, 26, from Calgary and Darnel Matsui, 28, from Medicine Hat are also facing numerous charges. Police are stil seeking an unnamed female also involved in the robbery.
A man and a woman first entered the front door of the premises, and had a short conversation with two employees at the counter. The two suspects then pulled out guns and forced the employees to the ground.
"We don't want to get stabbed, we don't want to get beaten, we don't want to get shot," said employee Sean Coward, recalling that the suspects pointed a gun at his face.
"It's not worth that kind of physical risk to try to fight back."
The armed robbers then let two more people into the store by its back door, and the four suspects grabbed everything they could.
"It's brutal, it's brutal," store owner David Malmo-Levine said.
The thieves, who forced Coward to open the shop's safe, made off with "almost everything," he said, including thousands of dollars of cash and products.
Although Coward complied with their demands, one of the suspects punched him hard in the jaw.
It was the dispensary's third robbery. The first time it was hit was just a few months after opening last spring.
In May 2015, thieves broke into the store by smashing a van through its front window.
Malmo-Levine said police told him it was some of the best security footage they'd ever seen, due to the number of cameras. He added that he advised anyone selling cannabis to get several cameras.
Anyone with more information on the robbery is asked to call a police tipline at 604-717-0613, or to contact Crime Stoppers anonymously.
- with files from CTV News