Nine-year-old selling lemonade robbed at gunpoint

Police in the US state of North Carolina are investigating the armed robbery of a nine-year-old boy who had set up a lemonade stand in his neighbourhood, Newsweek has reported.

While selling the lemonade, he was approached by a teenage suspect wearing a camo hat and black shirt, armed with a BB gun, according to police.

The suspect then hit the boy in the stomach with the gun before demanding his money and fleeing the scene.

“While searching the area for the suspect, deputies located a trail in the woods where a camo hat, a black-coloured BB handgun and the stolen metal tin were recovered,” the Union County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

“Deputies believe the suspect left a bicycle and walked from there to the lemonade stand before the robbery.”

“It’s pretty low, despicable in my book, and I can’t believe someone would stoop that low to steal money from him,” the boy’s father, Phillip Smith, told Fox 46 WJZY.

He told the television network that the suspect stole $17 from his son.

The police have been unable to locate the suspect so far.

The robbery has not dented the boy’s entrepreneurial spirit – less than 24 hours after the robbery, he was reported to be back out selling lemonade.

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