It happened around 4 a.m. Tuesday at the CVS pharmacy on Nesconset Highway in Port Jefferson Station.
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The three armed men wearing ski masks and gloves burst into the store, confronted one clerk and tied him up. Others were directed to open the storage bins. They would leave minutes later.
Police chased after the suspects, who were in a 2016 Mercedes Benz, in a high-speed pursuit that went on for miles but they got away. They may have been tracked as far west as Queens.
"When the officers went to pull the vehicle over, the vehicle took off at a high rate of speed and it was unsafe to follow at that point," said Suffolk County Chief of Detectives Gerard Gigante.
The suspects fled with prescription painkillers and cash.
There were no reports of shots fired or any injuries.
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Investigators believe the same suspects may be behind a string of similar late-night/early morning pharmacy robberies across Long Island and in Queens. There have been at least five other incidents, including three in Nassau County and two in Queens, that authorities believe may be linked.
"We're looking at the possibility that it's related to those pattern robberies," said Gigante.
Though no one was hurt in this incident, Long Islanders know all too well what could happen.
Seven years ago, opioid addict David Laffer robbed a pharmacy just south of Port Jefferson, in Medford, and murdered the pharmacist, his teenaged clerk and two customers who walked in on the robbery. Laffer is serving a life sentence.
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