Two good Samaritans robbed of cash, cell phones

By Frank DeLoache
Kannapolis Citizen
Some cynics say no good deed goes unpunished.
Matthew Burris, 20, and Trevor Brown, 18, might agree.
The two men told Kannapolis police officers that they were playing pool at the Ball and Cue on South Cannon Boulevard last Thursday night when a man they didn’t know asked if they could give him a ride home.
They agreed, and the two took him to West Green Apartments.
Burris and Brown later told police that 15 to 20 men were standing in the apartment parking lot when they arrived, and several men left the crowd and approached Brown’s car.
Brown was driving, and one of the men told him, “Give me all your s—,” according to a police report.
The man showed Brown and Burris a “black and silver handgun,” possibly a 9-mm, according to Police Lt. Bret Johnson.
Brown and Burris handed over all their cash, and the armed man said he also wanted their cell phones.
They complied.
The man then told the two to leave.
The men immediately found a phone and called 911. Officers met the two at a nearby Taco Bell, and Brown and Burris agreed to get in a police cruiser and return to the apartment complex.
According to an officer’s report, the same crowd of men was still gathered, and Brown and Burris identified two of the men. They couldn’t pick out a third suspect who had sort of hung back during the robbery.
Police charged Orlando “Land Mine” Torrence, 21, 115 Wayne Ave., with two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon. He was placed in the Cabarrus County jail under $10,000 bond.
Johnson said a 15-year-old was also arrested and has been referred to juvenile authorites.
According to the Cabarrus County Sheriff’s Office Web site, Torrence had been charged only two months earlier — on Jan. 9 — with common law robbery.
He had posted $5,000 bond and is still awaiting trial on that charge.