Police: Deputy catches felon out on bond after 3 robberies in York and Rock Hill

A felon out on bond was caught by an alert deputy Monday afternoon after a brazen crime spree from York to Rock Hill, police said.

Jeremy Kane Kimble, 36, was caught by a deputy in Rock Hill after a manhunt started Monday morning and stretched into the afternoon, said Lt. Rich Caddell with the York Police Department and Trent Faris, spokesman for the York County Sheriff’s Office.

“The man we have in custody is the same man York police had been looking for all day,” Faris said.

After the pre-dawn armed robbery of a Pride convenience store in the city of York – where Kimble allegedly had been in the store earlier before returning with a gun and wearing a mask – police started searching for Kimble.

Monday afternoon, the West Main Discount in Rock Hill and the China Garden gas station on S.C. 5 between York and Rock Hill were hit as part of Kimble’s crime blitz, police said.

The initial pre-dawn crime is a rarity in the city of York – the armed robbery of a business is just the second of 2016.

No one was hurt in any of the incidents, but the crimes were shocking coming so close to each other in one day after police agencies in both Carolinas were searching for Kimble.

In the first incident just after 5 a.m. Monday, a man police identified as Kimble went into the Congress Street Pride store in York wearing a mask while armed with a rifle and demanded cash, according to a written statement released by Caddell and warrants issued for Kimble’s arrest just after noon Monday.

Kimble, who has a past conviction for illegally carrying a machine gun or sawed-off shotgun as well as two drug and property crimes convictions, allegedly took the cash from the clerk and fled in a brown Nissan.

Officers were able to identify Kimble from store surveillance camera footage. The clerk who was robbed told officers that the same man had been in the store around two hours earlier, according to police. Detectives who reviewed the footage say the same man wearing the same clothes was in the store, then returned for the crime while armed and wearing the mask.

Kimble is charged with armed robbery and possession of a weapon during a violent crime in the York incident, Caddell said.

Monday afternoon, the stores at the Rock Hill city limits had been targeted, said Faris, the sheriff spokesman. After the last incident, a deputy was able to pull over Kimble and detain him near the Rock Hill city limits.

Kimble is now in the York County jail, said both Caddell and Faris. Charges from the afternoon crime spree are pending, police said.

Kimble is a many-time convicted felon who has convictions dating back to 1997 and most recently was arrested in August for assault and battery, according to State Law Enforcement Division records. In the August arrest Kimble was released on a $1,000 bond.

As a convicted felon, Kimble is barred by state and federal law from possessing a gun.

This story was originally published October 24, 2016 at 10:35 AM with the headline "Police: Deputy catches felon out on bond after 3 robberies in York and Rock Hill."