Alleged palm-frond holdup foiled

By Jen Horton
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Jun 19, 2008 - 4:07:35pm

A man allegedly walked into a DeLand store and demanded $50, and he was armed with a uniquely Floridian weapon.

The weapon was a palm frond.

Store owner Goutam Sarkar was outside V&F Discount Beverage store in DeLand, washing his car, when the man entered the store about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 18. Sarkar's father was manning the register.

"The man came in with the branch. I have never seen anything like this," Sarkar said. "My dad thought he was making fun of something."

DeLand police identified the man as Gelando Olivieri Jr., 34, of DeLand. Police said the robber wasn't making fun. The frond was a Spanish bayonet, a palmetto-like plant with extremely sharp points on the leaves.

"It was sharp," Sarkar said. "My dad realized that when he [the robber] took a swing with it. It could have done permanent damage if it had hit in the eyes."

After Sarkar's father refused to give the branch-waver any cash, a customer took a bar stool and ran the would-be robber out of the store, lion-tamer-style.

Sarkar ran into the store, and his father told him about the alleged robbery attempt.

"I said, 'What happened? Did he have a gun, did he have a knife?'" Sarkar said. "They told me no, he had a branch. I had to laugh."

The younger Sarkar and another local shopkeeper saw the suspect in a nearby patch of woods. They called the police, and the man was nabbed within minutes. Olivieri was charged with attempted armed robbery.

"It does look humorous," DeLand Police Sgt. John Anderson said.

However, he said, attempted armed robbery is never a laughing matter.

"He did arm himself with the intention that it would possibly do harm," Anderson said.

Anderson said the leaves of the Spanish bayonet are like knives, and that people often plant them under windows as a break-in deterrent.

"If you back into one, believe me, you'll know," Anderson said.

Anderson also said while this appears funny, the truth is no one person ever knows what another is capable of, and had there been other weapons, or had the suspect been in a different mind-set, the attempted robbery wouldn't have been funny at all.

"Hey, at least he was recycling," Anderson quipped. "Think green."

— jen@beacononlinenews.com

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