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Officials unclear if armed robbery suspect connected to Dawsonville CVS heist
Suspect shot, arrested at pharmacy in south Forsyth Saturday
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The FBI task force investigating a string of armed robberies at CVS stores across metro-Atlanta has not reached out to local law enforcement to determine if a February robbery at the Dawsonville location is connected.

"At this point, we have not been contacted by the task force, so at this point it is unclear if he is connected to our CVS robbery," said Dawson County Sheriff's spokesman Capt. Tony Wooten. "Of course, as the investigation unfolds more details may become available."

An Austell man is now in custody likely facing charges in connection with as many as 32 armed robberies after federal agents thwarted a heist of the CVS at Old Atlanta Road and Windermere Parkway in south Forsyth early Saturday morning.

Kelvone Charleston, 36, has been charged with assault on a federal officer.

He remains hospitalized in federal custody with gunshots wounds received while attempting to escape FBI agents and a Cherokee County Sheriff's deputy, who were watching Charleston about 7 a.m. as he pulled into the parking lot of the drug store.

According to FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett, they stopped the suspect before he entered the business, because they were certain he was about to rob it and has a "history of armed confrontations during these robberies.

"We couldn't allow him to commit the robbery," Emmett said.

When confronted, Charleston got back into his vehicle and attempted to drive away, which according to Emmett, resulted in several collisions between Charleston's car and the officers' unmarked vehicles at the store's exit to Windermere Parkway.

Emmett said that investigators are still determining the exact sequence involving the gunfire, but that Charleston was shot when he continued to present a threat. It was not immediately clear whether the suspect was armed and shot at the officers.

While authorities could not confirm an exact link, it was exactly a week earlier that a CVS store on Bells Ferry Road in nearby Canton had been robbed just as employees opened the store for the morning.

In that robbery, the suspect reportedly took both money and personal property before locking a store clerk in the restroom.

In the Dawsonville CVS robbery, Wooten said the man entered the store around noon Feb. 17 and demanded prescription pills from the pharmacy.

Wooten said that the male was armed with a handgun.

"The subject showed an employee a handgun in his waistband and demanded the drug," he said.

At the time, Wooten said that the subject could also be connected to other robberies in the area.

"We do have reason to believe that he may be connected to other crimes of similar nature at other pharmacies in the region," he said. "He could possibly be responsible for at least one more armed robbery in North Georgia around December 2014."

DCN regional reporter Jim Dean contributed to this story.