Two men briefly held three employees of Bowman Restaurant and Pub hostage during a Wednesday morning robbery in Parkville.
The unidentified men ? one armed with a shotgun ? walked into the bar area of the restaurant on Harford Road, said Baltimore County police spokesman William Toohey.
Five employees were present at the time, and one fled to the next-door Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4, where a worker called police.
While 911 was being called, three other employees ? two women and one man ? were ordered by the gunman into the restaurant?s standup freezer, police said. The fifth employee was in a different part of therestaurant and unaware of the robbery.
The men then grabbed an undisclosed amount of cash and fled the scene.
A Baltimore County SWAT team responded shortly thereafter and, fearing one of the robbers was still present at the restaurant, searched the area but found nothing.
“The search goes on,” Toohey said.
While the SWAT team?s search was being conducted, police shut down Harford Road between Interstate 695 and Joppa Road between 10 a.m. and noon.
No one was injured in the incident.
The morning robbery comes during a time of decline for such crimes in Baltimore County.
According to preliminary figures, police have tracked 301 robberies though April 29 this year, compared with 410 through the same time last year ? a 26 percent drop.
