ROCKINGHAM — A man and two women are facing criminal charges, accused of robbing a retail store late Tuesday night.
According to the Rockingham Police Department, officers responded to the Dollar General on W. Green Street just before 10 p.m. Sept. 10 after it had reportedly been robbed.
Employees gave the officers a description of the suspects and said that two individuals had gone into the store armed with handguns, demanding that the safe be opened, according to a media release posted to the department’s Facebook page on Wednesday.
Other officers searching the area reportedly saw a vehicle “driving at a high rate of speed, which appeared to be fleeing the area,” the release states.
Officers stopped the vehicle and, as they approached, reportedly could see “a large sum of U.S. currency” on the floorboard.
According to the release, police also recovered a handgun that had been reported stolen in Cheraw, South Carolina.
Keyon Benjamin Harrison, 23, of Rockingham, was arrested and charged with: three counts of kidnapping; two counts each of assault by pointing a gun and resisting a public officer; and one count each of robbery with a dangerous weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon, larceny from the person, possession of a stolen firearm and communicating threats.
Jail records show Harrison is also facing traffic citations from Iredell County of driving while license revoked, failure to wear a seat belt as a driver and having a child not in a rear seat.
Harrison is being held on a combined $306,000 secured bond. His court appearances are scheduled for Oct. 6 on the robbery charges, Oct. 19 on the Iredell citations, and Nov. 3 on the resisting charges.
Police also charged 23-year-old Nicole Miller Manning, of Rockingham, with three counts of kidnapping, two counts of assault by pointing a gun, and one count each of robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiracy to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon.
Manning is being held on a $250,000 secured bond and is scheduled to appear in court Oct. 6.
Online court records show Manning has several pending traffic citations, including driving without a license and without insurance.
Tasha Marie Chavis, also of Rockingham, was charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiracy and was given a $100,000 secured bond. Chavis did not appear on the jail website Wednesday afternoon.
The RPD post concludes with a statement saying Chief George Gillenwater recognizes the officers’ “speedy response to the scene,” which allowed them to find and arrest the suspects “safely.”
North and South Carolina records appear to show that Harrison is still on probation from convictions in the Palmetto State.
He was convicted in May 2021 on three counts of assault and battery of a highly aggravated nature and two counts of 1st degree assault and battery in Marlboro County. It appears all five of those charges were pled down from original counts of attempted murder.
Charges of possession of a weapon during a violent crime and possession of contraband were both dropped.
Two months later, prosecutors in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, dropped an armed robbery charge.
In 2020, Harrison pled guilty to second-degree burglary in Chesterfield County. Records show the original charge was armed robbery.
Neither Chaivs nor Manning appear to have previous convictions in North Carolina or the two neighboring South Carolina counties.
All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
