Cops: Masked gunman targets Sayville CVS

Police said a masked gunman held up a Sayville pharmacy Monday and fired an air pistol at an employee before fleeing with prescription painkillers

Witnesses described the suspect as a male between 20 and 30 years old and wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a black scarf covering his face.

He entered the CVS pharmacy on Main Street just before noon, jumped over the counter and shot at an employee's foot with the air pistol, police said. The employee was not injured.

The man then produced a second weapon and ordered an employee to open a safe, police said.

He took about 150 OxyContin pills and fled out a rear door, police said. As of Monday afternoon, police had not released a composite or surveillance images of the suspect.

Pharmacy robberies, particularly those involving the theft of painkillers, have become a growing concern for law enforcement since four people were slain June 19 during a robbery at Haven Drugs in Medford.

This is the fourth pharmacy robbery in Suffolk County this year involving the theft of painkillers and the second at a CVS. The first occurred at a Farmingville CVS on June 26. That robbery took place exactly one week after the robbery and killings in Medford. Suspects in both robberies are in custody.

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The need to satisfy an addiction to prescription drugs has driven criminals into increasingly brazen robberies, said Dominick Varrone, chief of detectives for Suffolk police.

They are "sloppy, careless and when they do a crime with a number of witnesses around, there is going to be an arrest," said Varrone, who has recently met with pharmacy and merchant groups to discuss safeguarding their businesses. "It's more representative of an act of desperation."

Pharmacy robberies are an issue that "all drugstores have been challenged by for many years," CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis wrote in an email.

The pharmacy chain has security procedures and policies in place to curtail such crimes, but won't disclose them to safeguard their effectiveness. He said the company is fully cooperating with police.

Suffolk detectives asked anyone with information to call the Fifth Squad at 631-854-8552, or Crime Stoppers at 800-220-8477. All calls will be kept confidential.