CENTRALIA — Centralia police have released more details about a reported armed robbery Tuesday afternoon with the victim allegedly being pistol-whipped during the incident.

According to Police Chief Greg Dodson, at approximately 3:45 p.m. officers responded to a 911 call from a local business stating a subject came into their restaurant saying he had just been a victim of an armed robbery.

Officers responded to the scene and began a search of the area. Investigators responded and after a brief interview were able to determine that all the events occurred at 520 ½ N. Locust St.

Officers responded to the address and took 23-year-old Jacob White and 23-year-old Imani Kaufman, both of Centralia, into custody. White was wanted on an active Clinton County warrant for burglary. He was later processed and transported to the Clinton County Jail. Kaufman had been the subject of an ongoing drug investigation and the incident resulted in her being arrested.

The victim has been identified as 29-year-old Bradley Hilderbrand, of Romeoville. Hildebrand told police he had been”pistol-whipped” during the robbery and suffered injuries from the incident. Hilderbrand was treated on scene by EMS and taken to the police department along with his 31-year-old girlfriend Priscilla Martinez, also of Romeoville who was present at the time of the robbery. At the police department, a full interview was conducted and Hilderbrand was shown a photo lineup but failed to identify the person who assaulted him.

Additional interviews were conducted with other witnesses who were present at the time and according to those witnesses, Hilderbrand drove down to Centralia from Romeoville and was allegedly delivering a quantity of heroin to the 520 ½ address and was robbed when he arrived. But no one would identify the identity of the suspect who committed the robbery at this time.

According to Dodson, the address where the incident occurred has been a hotbed of drug activity in the Centralia area. On December 4, 2019, Centralia police executed a federal arrest and search warrant of the address where the resident still being incarcerated in the Marion County Jail.

On January 17, 2020, the Centralia Police Department identified Josh White who had an active warrant for his arrest as being a Felon in Possession of a firearm. This incident resulted in a foot pursuit of White to 520 ½ N. Locust where he was staying at the time, and he actively resisted officers trying to arrest him.

Dodson says the current resident of 520 ½ N. Locust is Kaufman who has been the subject of an ongoing drug investigation by the Centralia Police Department. The Centralia Police Department had conducted three controlled buys on Kaufman and was preparing to execute a search warrant at that residence.

According to Dodson, after Tuesday’s act of senseless violence, it was decided to take Kaufman into custody immediately. She was charged with three separate counts of Delivery of a Controlled Substance and was transported to the Marion County Jail to appear in court on the charges.

Due to conditions that were readily apparent to officers at the time of the arrests Centralia Code Enforcement was called to the scene and determined that the premises were uninhabitable due to flagrant code violations that made it a danger to anyone living in the residence. The residence has since been boarded up and is now condemned.

Dodson says the Centralia Police Department is currently seeking to strengthen the city’s nuisance abatement ordinances in relation to properties where this type of criminal behavior continuously occurs and poses a public nuisance to the surrounding neighbors diminishing their quality of life and sense of safety in the own homes.