When 24-year-old Kamanye Williams was shot while allegedly trying to rob a drugstore in D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood in February, it helped police unravel a small ring of repeat robberies that dated back to last summer.
Now court documents say it wasn’t just one employee in on the robberies but two.
Earlier this month, police arrested 26-year-old Gianni Robinson and his uncle, 33-year-old Michael Robinson in connection with a series of robberies at a Walgreens store on 7th and H streets in Northwest.
It was then determined that Michael Robinson, who was a manager of the store, coordinated the robberies with his nephew.
Court documents revealed more of what happened, including a fourth suspect — Gianni Robinson’s live-in girlfriend, who was not named.
Prosecutors said she’s also a manager at the store and helped Gianni Robinson, described as the ringleader of the scheme, commit the robberies.
The store was robbed seven times by Williams between July 2023 and Feb. 11, 2024, the day he was shot in the chest by an armed security guard, prosecutors said.
When Gianni Robinson was arrested two days later, prosecutors said his girlfriend was at home with him. The documents also lay out how either Michael Robinson or the other accused manager were often working at the times of the robberies, and would exchange text messages with Gianni Robinson in the minutes before and after the robberies.
During a robbery in August, suspicions were raised when surveillance pictures inside a manager’s office showed a gun carried by Williams was left on a seat right next to Michael Robinson, as he helped fill a backpack full of cash. The documents showed text messages between Gianni Robinson’s girlfriend and Michael Robinson saying, “The vid looks so bad” and “He can’t do it next time ngl.”
Other messages talk about how Michael Robinson was willing to get roughed up by Williams to make the robbery look real, prosecutors said, but that Gianni Robinson didn’t want his girlfriend to be physically harmed.
A message sent on Aug. 29, 2023 from Gianni Robinson said: “Don’t even want her to be the victim.”
The one robbery that occurred when neither manager was present happened on Nov. 10, and video shows the robber, identified by prosecutors as Williams, looking at his phone and punching in a code to get inside the manager’s office.
Most of the robberies netted about $3,000 to $7,000 in cash that was split up in ways that aren’t exactly made clear, though at times, the suspects involved were seen complaining that walking away with a couple of hundred dollars wasn’t always worth it.
The documents were posted as part of an argument for prosecutors to keep Gianni Robinson behind bars, despite his lack of a criminal record and the fact he wasn’t involved in the actual robberies.
In the documents, the U.S. Attorney’s Office argues that Gianni Robinson “is directly responsible for seven (7) armed robberies of the Chinatown Walgreens.” While noting the apparent interest in buying more illegal guns, they pointed out that his actions were the reason his friend Williams, “lays in a hospital bed with a bullet hole in his chest.”
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