Arrest made in smoke shop robbery

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Jaggar Lee Bayliff

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July 6, 2012

Arrest made in smoke shop robbery

Christin Coyne CNHI The Weatherford Democrat Fri Jul 06, 2012, 08:00 AM CDT

WEATHERFORD — Weatherford police arrested a man late Tuesday who they believe robbed a local smoke shop employee at gunpoint two days prior, taking several hundred dollars in cash and synthetic marijuana products.

Though the suspect wore a bandana and a ball cap during the robbery, police say the clerk recognized the man as a previous customer who had made legitimate transactions at the store and had a distinctive facial tattoo.

Jaggar Lee Bayliff, 18, was identified late Tuesday, according to Detective Wendy Field, arrested and booked into the Parker County jail on a charge of aggravated robbery.

Around 9:15 p.m. Sunday, a cashier at Easy’s Smoke Shop, located in the 900 block of South Main Street, told police that a man wearing baggy pants, a dark, long sleeve shirt, a bandana around the lower half of his face and ball cap pointed a gun at her and demanded all the money and “potpourri.”

When he handed her a plastic bag, she put the money and “potpourri” in the bag and the man left the store, according to police.

The robbery was reportedly caught on video surveillance.

Based on a description of the suspect, Weatherford police officers and members of the Weatherford-Parker County Special Crimes Unit determined that the description of the suspect matched Bayliff, who has several previous arrests and convictions during the past year.

“Officers began a search of the city for Bayliff, so that an interview could be conducted,” a Weatherford police officer’s probable cause affidavit states.

Bayliff was located around 9:15 p.m. Tuesday in the 1200 block of South Main Street and agreed to go to the Weatherford Police Department for an interview, police reported.

During the interview with investigators, Bayliff confessed to disguising himself with a long sleeve shirt and bandana, taking a .22-caliber handgun into Easy’s Smoke Shop and pointing it at the clerk while demanding the money in the register and K2, the probable cause affidavit states.

After he was placed under arrest, he reportedly led detectives to locations in the area to collect evidence before being booked into the Parker County Jail early Wednesday morning, police wrote.

Store manager Norma Garcia told the Democrat Monday that the suspect had hung around the store in the past and she ran him off after he began “harassing” customers for change or cigarettes.

At one point he told her he wasn’t afraid of the police, Garcia said.

The clerk was in shock during the robbery because she recognized him despite his disguise, according to Garcia.

Bayliff has spent about 10 months of the last year and a half in jail, his most recent time ending June 21, according to county records. He was convicted of state jail felony engaging in organized criminal activity in 2011 and received five misdemeanor convictions in 2012 for possession of a dangerous drug and theft.

Bayliff remained in the Parker County Jail Thursday with bond set at $50,000.

Though the Texas legislature outlawed or attempted to outlaw synthetic marijuana, or K2, with a law that went into effect last year, some types are apparently still legal.

“From what I understand, the companies that make this “potpourri” have changed the chemical make-up so that it doesn’t fit what was described in the law so they can get around it,” Field said when asked about the product reportedly stolen.