Two armed masked robbers steal car from family waiting on children at dance studio in Vinton VA. Studio 45 is an award winning dance studio located in Vinton VA on the top floor of the old Perdue building on the edge of “downtown Vinton” (116 Jefferson Ave). Studio 45 has been in operation since 2010 and run a wonderful operation. The studio is taking this incident very seriously and has established new procedures for students of the studio and parents coming and going from the studio. Below is a copy of their post on Facebook.
Update below from Vinton Police Facebook page – They report that 2 Black Males wearing hoodies and masks partially covering their face carjacked the victims at gunpoint.
If anyone has ANY information on who these criminals are please call the Vinton police Dept.
The facebook post text by Studio 45 is below:
This is a late post, BUT it’s a necessary one…. Just wanted to give everyone an update on a situation that occurred tonight at the studio. While some parents/family members were waiting in the parking lot for the last class of the night to finish up, they were approached by 2 people in hoodies and masks. They asked them to get into their car, and when the family told them no, they pulled out a weapon and stole the car. Everyone IS okay, just completely shaken up that this even happened. First off, we are devastated that this even occurred. We want to apologize to the family that this happened to, and we want everyone to know that there are measures being taken to keep everyone safer inside of the studio, and I’ll be outlining those later on in this post. **********The car is a dark grey Honda Accord, license plate number XPK-4311. Please keep your eyes open for this car and if you see it, please call the police immediately. ********** *Pictured below* Secondly, we would like to apologize to the kids and parents/guardians that were in the Senior Elite HipHop tonight for having to be “barricaded” in the studio for a short period of time. They all handled it in the most adult way, and again we are very thankful that nothing happened to anyone, especially our younger dancers that were there tonight. As for safety, I want to emphasize that we are working with our landlord to get more lighting around the studio parking lot, AND we are going to be installing a camera system to keep eyes on all of our entrances and parking lot. We also want you to know that we will ALWAYS have someone at the desk at all times. On top of this, if your dancer drives themselves, PLEASE make sure to talk to them about this situation and tell them that they CANNOT leave the studio alone. They must NOT sit in their cars for extended periods of time at nights in the parking lot, and they need to park as close to the studio door as possible. As far as other safety measures, if you are planning to drop off your child at the studio, we ask that you COME INTO THE STUDIO TO PICK THEM UP. No matter age or time of their class. We always do our best to make sure we walk out the dancers and get them to their cars, but for the time being, we would feel more comfortable if parents would come up and walk their dancer out after class. Please know that we will continue to be in touch with the police, and like I said, putting in the works of more safety measures to keep our kids safe. Please share this post so that we can find whoever did this.
UPDATE POSTED ON THE VINTON POLICE FACEBOOK PAGE:
