New information today in the case of the 30-year-old man arrested at an Arbor Heights house Tuesday night on suspicion of robbing the Westwood Village Game Stop store earlier that night. His bail is set at $100,000 after his appearance in a jailhouse courtroom downtown this afternoon. And the probable-cause documents say police suspect him and a 39-year-old relative – who is not in custody – of committing this robbery, and are investigating them in connection with three other robberies/major thefts in the past six months:
According to the documents, Tuesday night’s Game Stop heist started ten minutes before closing time, when two masked men, one with a handgun and one with pepper spray, entered the store. They ordered employees to take all the money out of the tills; one refused, and was sprayed. That employee started fighting with the spray-wielding robber; in the meantime, the one with the gun started taking money from the tills. Then both robbers ran out to the parking lot – and that’s when the witness mentioned in our original coverage saw them and took a photo of their vehicle while making note of its license number. The witness called the information to 911. That enabled officers to get the Arbor Heights address to which the vehicle was registered. They found the vehicle at the house and saw two men standing in the front yard; they ordered them not to move, but the two walked into the house. Police surrounded the house, ordered them to come out, and one – the man in custody – eventually did, along with a female relative who lives there. She gave them permission to search the house for the other suspect, who wasn’t found. She wouldn’t let them look for evidence, so they had to get a warrant.
As the vehicle was being towed to the evidence room, police say, they spotted a Taser/stun gun inside it. After this mention, the probable-cause document goes into the other robberies for which they are investigating the two suspects in this one:
-On November 10th, the smoke shop on 35th SW just north of Roxbury was robbed by two men, one armed with a Taser/stun gun, one with pepper spray. They sprayed and Tasered a store employee while stealing cash from the till. They got away with the money and a carton of cigarettes.
The three earlier incidents happened outside West Seattle:
-May 14 in Federal Way, two people stole an ATM from inside a store in the 27000 block of Military Road South, loading it into what was described as a stolen station wagon.
-July 12 in Federal Way, two people tried to steal a drive-up ATM from a bank in the 32300 block of Pacific Highway South using what was described as a “stolen lift truck.”
-September 28 in Georgetown, two people with that same “stolen lift truck” held up a 76 station in the 500 block of S. Michigan Street by spraying the on-duty employee with “bear spray” and then making off with the store’s ATM.
The suspect who is in custody does not have a felony criminal record so far as we have found. He is due back in court tomorrow unless prosecutors file charges, in which case an arraignment date would be set
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