At a news conference Monday afternoon, Police Commissioner Richard Dormer said authorities were offering up to a $5,000 reward for information on the suspect, who got away with prescription drugs after the shooting inside Haven Drugs in Medford shortly after 10 a.m. Sunday.
Mejia, 17, along with 45-year-old pharmacist Raymond Ferguson, and customers Bryon Sheffield, 71, and Jamie Taccetta, 33, were all shot and killed, execution-style.
Taccetta ran into the pharmacy Sunday, while her fiancee waited outside. He grew worried and discovered the massacre when he went inside to check on what happened
Pharmacist Howard Levine said his West Babylon pharmacy was robbed twice by a man looking for drugs.
Levine said he no longer carries addictive painkillers like oxycontine and oxycodone. He said he believes pharmacy robberies can be prevented by strengthening drug regulations and record-keeping.
“To identify those people who are excessively prescribing, those people who are excessively dispensing and those people who are excessively using,” he said.
)Suffolk parole and probation officials Monday looked in their records for leads: known opiate addicts or someone who might have recently failed a drug test. Narcotics detectives consulted informants to learn if opiate pills were hitting the black market en masse.
I really don't think that the robber/murderer was a drug user.
This guy must have stolen a lot if they are asking drug users if there has been a sudden increase in supply. There is always a lot available there, it's not like a place that doesn't have any pills.
'oxy-like' substance makes me think he was goin after opana or dilaudid, those are fairly rare on the street and there are lots of scum-fuck Criminal Informants out there. All the cops have to do is ask their rats if they get a hold of any of those particular pills and start connecting the dots.
ya the piddly $5k reward had me 8)
/the fiance, in the pharmacy, with a handgun?
//that's some television-shit right there ;P (to entertain that theory means we gotta entertain he shot, or was involved in the shooting of, his fiance)
///pharmacist is right, to a degree, anyways - big-ass "no oxycodone, dilaudid, xxxxxx" signs surely have *some* effect (hate that it's come to that, but i'd definitely help make the posters if i were close to any pharmacists)
Opanas are all over here. They aren't connecting any dots. It has never taken me more than 2 phone calls to get what I need here.
This is truly disgusting and awful, 17 years old is too young to die. But I would rather get shot and die then get stabbed or bludgeoned to death any day of the week.
read moreMEDFORD, N.Y. (AP) — Police on Wednesday escorted a handcuffed man out of a home near a pharmacy where four people were shot to death in a botched weekend robbery, witnesses said.
About 30 to 40 officers converged on the Medford home and brought out the man, who resembled surveillance photos of the suspected killer, said Peter Spano, who was working on the lawn next door.
Suffolk County police and prosecutors declined to say whether the activity was related to the homicide investigation, which has spawned a massive manhunt for a gaunt man with a beard wearing glasses and a baseball cap. Police released footage of the man after Sunday's shootings and have received more than 250 tips so far.