Accused bus-stop robber Gerald Birch, 20, thinks he has the goods to go to college some day.
But if what police say is true, the only goods Birch had on Jan. 31 were stolen from robbery victims, said Assistant District Attorney Michael Diamondstein yesterday. He said Birch, of Albanus Street near 2nd, didn’t show much intelligence when he asked cops if he could get a jacket out of the trunk of a parked stolen car, after he was found sleeping at the wheel on Clifford Street near 60th Avenue.
When the trunk flipped open, cops found a gun, a few jackets, two watches, two wallets and a radio allegedly take 24 hours before in early-morning robberies, Diamondstein said.
About eight people waiting at bus stops along Broad Street were robbed at gunpoint by two bandits, said the prosecutor.
After a preliminary hearing before Common Pleas Judge Lillian H. Ransom, Birch and Allen Enoch, 18, of Farrington Road near Brockton, who was arrested later, were ordered to stand trial for four bus-stop holdups, and for an unsuccessful robbery of a jewelry store at 5th Street and Olney Avenue.
The two are awaiting a hearing on charges of holding up another jewelry store and escaping with about $30,000 in jewelry and cash.
“This would have only been a stolen car case if the trunk wasn’t opened,” said Diamondstein.
Birch and Enoch are alleged to have started robbing people at about 6 a.m., when they used a gun on two boys, ages 15 and 17, waiting for a bus to go to school. They got a jacket from the younger boy.
Other victims waiting for buses at Broad Street and 69th Avenue, and in the area of Andrews and Ogontz avenues. A 55-year-old woman was struck on the head and thrown to the ground during one offense.
Enoch later told police he didn’t remember the details of the crimes because he was high on drugs and booze. Birch denied being one of the robbers.
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