By Joe Johnson
Athens-Clarke County police believe a Lyft driver was involved in an armed robbery that occurred three months ago at a Winterville convenience store, according to a search warrant on file in Clarke County Superior Court.
According to police, the robbery at Golden Pantry on Athens Road occurred late the night of April 20 when a black male wearing a bandana over his face entered the store, pointed a pistol at the clerk and demanded money.
After obtaining cash from the 21-year-old female clerk the robber fled the scene in a white sedan, police said.
In an affidavit supporting a search warrant application that was filed May 15, a detective stated that just prior to the robbery an off-duty officer noticed a white Nissan Maxima with a pink Lyft sticker on the right rear window.
“It is (my) belief that if in fact the white Nissan was being driven by a Lyft driver, their GPS location would be known and recorded by Lyft,” the detective stated in his affidavit, “It is also (my) belief that the personal information should be available on the driver who was working as a Lyft driver at the time.”
The search warrant, signed by Superior Court Judge Eric Norris, orders Lyft to provide all recorded data for every locally-registered white Nissan Maxima, including “all personal information, times, distances, and travel locations for Lyft drivers operating in the area of 215 Athens Road in Athens-Clarke County at 11:05 p.m. on April 20, 2019.”
Neither the search warrant affidavit nor the police incident report of the robbery indicated whether the suspect was though to be the driver or a passenger of the Maxima.