Man Shook 7-Eleven Worker, Demanded Money In Brick Robbery: PD

BRICK, NJ — A Howell Township man was arrested early Tuesday after police say he tried to rob the 7-Eleven on Burnt Tavern Road in Brick.

Martin C. Kirsch, 31, has been charged with second-degree robbery and is being held at the Ocean County Jail in Toms River, Brick Sgt. Neal Pedersen said.

Police were called to the 7-Eleven at 1151 Burnt Tavern Road at 2:32 a.m. The store manager told Patrolman John Gordon that a man had come into the store and demanded money. When the employees refused to give him money, the man "grabbed another employee by the shirt and began yelling and screaming at both men demanding the money," Pedersen said. The man then let go of the employee and walked outside to the parking lot, where he got into a physical altercation with the other employee, who was on the phone with the police department.

At that point, the manager told police, the man ran off toward the Gulf gas station located directly across the street, Pedersen said. The man was described as a white male with dark hair and full thick beard, about 25 to 30 years old, wearing a black shirt and black pants. Security video confirmed the information, he said, and the employees additionally told police the man had been seen in the store two hours before the incident.

While Gordon was talking to the manager and employees, other officers were searching the area for the man, later identified as Kirsch, in the area of the gas station and the Garden State Parkway commuter parking lot. Patrolman Bennett, who was searching in the rear of the Gulf station, saw a man fitting the description from the store manager and arrested Kirsch without incident, Pedersen said.

Neither of the employees were injured and both refused medical attention, police said.

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Martin Kirsch photo via Ocean County Corrections Department