WANTED: 1 Armed Robbery Suspect Sought; 1 Is Jailed

Wauwatosa police are asking your help apprehending a man wanted as the gunman in an armed robbery.

One Milwaukee man is jailed and charged with the armed robbery on July 8 of a Wauwatosa convenience store, and his known accomplice, also from Milwaukee, is being sought throughout the metro area.

Montrell L. Goss, 23, was arrested the next day and charged Saturday with armed robbery, punishable by up to 40 years in prison.

Chazmon J. Huff, 21, is not in custody but is named in a warrant and a criminal complaint charging him with the same crime.

A very sharp piece of police work by a rookie patrol officer and the help of some alert citizens brought about a quick identification of the suspects. 

'I knew I was about to be robbed'

According to police reports and the criminal complaint, Goss and Huff hitched a ride with a friend early in the morning of July 8 on the pretense of paying a visit to Goss’ girlfriend and her mother near North Avenue and 124th Street.

Just before 6 a.m., Goss and Huff told their driver to turn onto 115th Street so they could stop at the Open Pantry store at 15000 W. North Ave., Goss to buy some cigarettes and Huff to urinate in the alley, according to the driver.

Instead, both went to the front door of the convenience store and stood outside briefly, Huff putting the hood of his sweatshirt up and fingering something in its front pouch pocket.

The assistant manager, alone in the store, told police "I knew I was about to be robbed" and searched in vain for a silent alarm button. There was none.

At 5:52 a.m., while Goss stood lookout, holding the door open, Huff walked up to the assistant manager, pointed a black semi-automatic handgun at him and demanded, “Give me your money.”

The manager opened one register and then was ordered to the floor while Huff emptied the drawer. Goss, from the door, shouted “Get in the (expletive) safe,” the victim told police.

The manager told the men he couldn’t open the safe and that there was no money in a second register. Goss and Huff left, and the manager saw no vehicle.

All was captured on video, but police had no immediate clue to the identity of the robbers.

A rookie's hunch pays off

A sergeant charged with supervising the initial investigation assigned two patrol officers to canvass the area in the hope that someone might have seen something.

One of them, a rookie hired at the beginning of this year, went door-to-door and found a woman who had seen a white sedan park across from her on 115th Street about 5:50 a.m. and wait while, she said, a man got out, was gone for a few minutes, then came back in a hurry.

Despite the woman’s report of seeing only one subject, the officer was sure this was the getaway car. But the woman could not recall the make and model of the car and did not get its license number.

A white sedan, two black men in their 20s, now long gone and fading back into metro Milwaukee. Still very little to go on.

The rookie cop knew from his training that robbers often case similar businesses in an area before striking a vulnerable target. On a pure long-shot chance, he drove nine blocks west to another Open Pantry store at 12324 W. North Ave.

The manager of that store told him a new white Chevy Malibu sedan had pulled in about 5:15 a.m. to the gas pump farthest from the store entrance, even though all pumps were open. He said he knew that was often a prelude to a gas drive-off.

So he wrote down the license number.

One man got out, he said, and did try to pump gas but was having trouble with the pump. The manager cleared it for him and sold him $5.02 worth of gas. He would later be able to identify the customer as Montrell Goss.

Another alert officer from MPD

Wauwatosa police found the license number registered to a rental car. They put out a bulletin on it.

At 1 a.m. the next morning, a Milwaukee patrol officer spotted the car parked in the 2500 block of Teutonia Avenue, unoccupied. He remembered it from the briefing at the start of his shift and called in backup squads.

When a man came out of a bar and got into the car, they followed it around the corner and pulled him over. Then another man came out of the bar to see what the problem was and said it was his rented car.

Both were arrested and held for questioning by Wauwatosa police. Neither would turn out to be the robbery suspects – but the one who claimed the car had been their unknowing getaway driver, and the other was acquainted with them.

Armed with still photos from video at both stores, Tosa police within hours had multiple, positive ID’s of Goss and Huff as the perpetrators from people closely associated with them. Huff was found at home and arrested, and clothing identical to that used in the robbery was taken as evidence.

Booking photos shown to the managers of both stores were picked from line-ups for additional positive identifications.

Huff was reported by associates to be essentially homeless and living out of a black Monte Carlo.

Anyone with information as to Huff’s whereabouts is asked to call the Wauwatosa Police Investigative Bureau at 414-471-8430.