Cathleen Allison/Nevada AppealCarson City Senior Forensic Specialist Dean Higman dusts for fingerprints at the Frontier Market on Wednesday morning after the shop was robbed by three men.
When a robber pressed a handgun into convenience store clerk Raja Sing's side and said something Wednes-day morning, the east Indian immigrant who speaks minimal English didn't need any words to understand the request.
Singh, 50, put his hands in the air - just as he'd been taught by shop owner Bobby Thind - and stepped away from the cash register.
An hour after the ordeal in which the gunman and two friends emptied the cash till and casually exited the Frontier Market, Singh stood shaking outside.
"He was scared," said Carson City Sheriff's Detective Bob Motamenpour. "I don't blame him."
Just after 8 a.m., the three men made off with an undisclosed amount of cash, a bottle of Traci Gold rum and a 24-ounce can of Coors.
Just seven months in the United States and one month in Carson City, Sing could only describe the getaway vehicle as a blue Chevy sedan.
Thind, owner of the Frontier Motel and Market in north Carson, said that when he hired Singh, his uncle by marriage, he taught him about the business. And he made a special effort to teach him about how to handle a robbery, especially in light of an armed robbery in Fernley this month in which the clerk survived being shot.
"I got robbed a couple times in California, so I know how it works," Thind said.
He instructed Singh to immediately puts his hands in the air, and not look the culprit in the eye.
He told Singh to not resist and always hand over the money.
Thind's instructions seemed to have worked.
The bandits left. And they left behind a frightened newcomer to Nevada, but a live one, said Thind.
"It's OK, the money," said Thind. "(Raj) is alive. That's all that matters."
The gunman is described as a black man in his mid-20s, 5-feet-9 inches, to 6-feet tall. He had no facial hair and wore a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans.
His two friends are described as a black man with a beard, also in his mid-20s and shorter than 5-feet-9-inches tall, and a white man with a gray beard and hair in his early to mid-40s. They too were wearing dark, hooded sweatshirts and blue jeans.
The men are believed to have fled southbound on Carson Street.
Anyone with information on the robbery is asked to call Carson City Sheriff's Detective Bob Motamenpour at 887-2020, Ext. 41406.