ROWAN COUNTY — Police are investigating after they said that a man walked into a Circle K wearing a bulletproof vest and robbed the store at gunpoint.

The incident occurred at approximately 1:15 a.m. on Tuesday, when a man entered the Circle K store in the 2200 block of Statesville Boulevard wearing a bulletproof vest and a black mask, said Sergeant Justin Crotty, a spokesperson for the Salisbury Police Department.

The man then allegedly walked up to the counter and pulled out a gun and pointed it at the clerk, telling them to take all of the money out of the registers and give it to him. The clerk took the money, put it into a bag and gave it to him, said Crotty.

The man then allegedly immediately left the store and ran away. Officers who responded to the scene attempted to track him with a K-9 unit, which tracked the man to Hannah Avenue before losing the trail.

Crotty said that the department had not yet identified any suspects, but that they had identified a similar robbery in Granite Quarry the past week. 

The Granite Quarry robbery occurred at approximately 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 5, at the Gas’n’Go located in the 400 block of South Salisbury Avenue, said Sergeant Richard Tester with the Granite Quarry Police Department. In that incident, a man walked into the store wearing a thick long-sleeve shirt and a mask that hid most of his face, but Tester said that officers were unable to confirm whether he was wearing a vest due to the shirt.

The man then allegedly motioned towards his pocket to indicate to the store clerk that he had a firearm. Tester said that the man stole approximately $1,100 in the incident.

Neither sergeant was able to confirm that the two incidents were related, but said that both departments are treating a connection as a possibility during the investigations.