Moultrie police are seeking a shotgun-wielding robber and his accomplice in Wednesday morning robberies of stores that have been the victims of previous violence.

One of the robberies at a convenience store near the county’s junior high school briefly put the campus on lockdown.

At about 3:42 a.m. the Moultrie Police Department received a panic alarm from the Chevron store at Veterans Parkway and U.S. Highway 319 North.

The second robbery occurred at about 9 a.m. at Super C convenience store on West Bypass.

In both instances a shotgun was the weapon used, and police suspect the same pair of pulling off both robberies.

“Absolutely,” police Inv. Steven Colgan said of whether the two were related. “Same suspects, black males both (wearing) hooded jackets, faces covered, brandished shotguns.”

Nobody was injured in the pair of holdups from which witnesses reported the robbers escaped on foot.

The Super C was the scene of a fatal shooting during a robbery about 15 years ago. The operator of a nearby liquor store on West Bypass also was killed during a holdup at around the same time.

The liquor store never reopened and the convenience store was closed for a number of years before it was opened for business again.

In January 2009 the Chevron store was held up by a man also wielding a shotgun. The robber fired a shot into the ceiling of the building during that afternoon robbery.

Following the robbery of the convenience store, nearby C.A. Gray Junior High was locked down for about 10 minutes, Colquitt County Schools Superintendent Samuel DePaul said.

During that time the doors were locked and students were kept in their classrooms.

“After a brief amount of time trying to determine the (threat) we were notified they were out or fleeing, so it did not have to be locked down for a long time,” he said. “Fortunately it was short and sweet and a non-incident.”

The Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office, which has a school resource officer at the campus, notified the school of the situation quickly, sheriff’s Lt. Tonero Bender said.

“Any time we hear about a situation we notify the principal, we notify the administration,” he said. “It’s up to the school to make the decision” to lock down a school.