Armed Robbery Number Three

Never witness an armed robbery unless you have a lot of time on your hands.

Yesterday at about 3:00 in the afternoon I was sitting at my desk when I happened to look out our front window in time to see a man with a gun and a scarf wrapped around his face robbing our neighbor and fellow language school student Steve. It was literally happening about fifteen feet from where I was sitting. I turned and told Missy “someone is getting robbed!” The robber took Steve’s wallet, patted him down, and then turned to run. As the robber turned, he looked right at Missy and I who were just staring out the window in semi-shock. The thought struck me that the he had big eyes and looked very nervous. Steve later told me that the robber was really shaking during the robbery.

The daycare at language school is shut down this week due to swine flu concerns, and so I had stayed home with Devin all day yesterday. I was in my flannel lounge pants, a t-shirt, and flip-flops when the robbery took place.

When the robber took off, I hollered for Missy to open our electric gate and I took off after the robber. I knew that he had turned the corner and was heading toward a police station which sits two blocks away, and I was hoping that a police would be out. Just as I ran around the corner of our block a mailman on a motorcycle came around the corner at the other end of the block and headed straight toward me. I figured that the robber had run up the street from which the mailman had just come, so I started hollering to the mailman, “chase that guy!” He hollered, “did he rob someone?” and when I yelled “yes” he whipped around and headed back up the street after the robber. I kept running toward the street that the robber had taken, and when I got to the corner I could see the mailman following a brown car. I yelled toward the police station at the top of my lungs, and right away an officer came out.

The mailman followed the getaway car up to the main highway and then came back to where I and the policeman were standing and gave a description of the vehicle and the license plate number. The policeman immediately radioed out the information, and then I took him to talk to Steve.

The police man and I had perhaps been standing talking to Steve for two minutes (the officer was in the process of telling us that there are now about 15 robberies in our neighborhood a day) when a patrol car pulled up. Two officers jumped out and told Steve and me to hurry up and get in the car because a suspect had just been caught a little ways away. So Steve and I (of course I’m still in my PJs) jumped into the car and took off. We drove a couple of blocks up to the main highway and then started weaving through traffic with sirens blaring. Spectators were probably wondering what in the world was up with the two Americans sitting in the back seat of the police car.

We came upon several more police cars and the getaway car which had been pulled over about 3 miles from our house. Police were everywhere, and a young kid was standing beside the car. However, he didn’t look like the robber. Steve and I got out of the cop car and were standing there waiting when another police car pulled up with the robber sitting in the back seat. It is amazing how they caught him. I need to walk Missy to language school so I will have to tell the rest of my story later. Don’t worry, there is plenty more to tell.