75-year-old pharmacist tackles, stops 23-year-old robber

A 75-year-old Pierce County pharmacist saved the day when he tackled a 23-year-old robber at his store Saturday.

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Pharmacist Don Zimmerman told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson that the man snuck in through the back door and grabbed several bottles of cough syrup.

“He came over with his head down and he had a Klu Klux Klan mask on,” Zimmerman said.

Without hesitating, Zimmerman flung himself on the thief. Zimmerman guessed that the criminal weighed about 250 pounds.

“When he jumped on me, he pinned my arm and so I was holding him with my left hand,” he said. “I couldn’t get my right hand to lock it with my left arm to put some pressure on the guy.”

With help from his colleagues, Zimmerman stopped the robber in his tracks and called the police. The man now faces at least 44 months in jail, Zimmerman said.

The robber allegedly owed his drug dealer for heroin that he had not paid for. The dealer threatened the man’s life unless he brought back cough syrup with codeine.

“Codeine is the new hot one; it has been for several months,” Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman said that, in spite of the danger of a physical altercation with a man one-third his age, he could not have done otherwise.

“It’s just a matter of the values I was taught … I don’t steal from anybody and I don’t like anyone stealing from me,” Zimmerman said.

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