Palo Alto police investigate alleged armed robbery, other incidents possibly involving same suspects
Palo Alto police have opened an investigation into an alleged robbery and other incidents they believe may involve the same suspects.
Police were alerted to an alleged armed robbery on the night of Friday, April 15. A man told police he’d been parked in his driveway and was about to retrieve an infant relative from the back seat when two men pulled up in a black Honda Accord. The victim said the passenger got out and the driver remained in the car, but both pointed guns at him and ultimately left with his wristwatch. The child was unharmed, police said.
The victim reportedly told police that the men had been wearing ski masks and he could not approximate their ages, but that one of them appeared to have a lighter complexion and the other appeared to be African-American.
Police say they’d investigated a suspicious circumstance at the Patagonia store on Alma Street, possibly involving the same subjects. The two had been sitting in their car, a black two-door Honda Accord, for some length of time, when one of them got out, made eye contact with the store security guard, then got back in the car. The two then drove away.
Police eventually caught up with the suspect vehicle at around 7 PM following reports of auto burglaries in the area at the Stanford Shopping Center of El Camino Real. The vehicle fled when officers arrived, and officers decided not to pursue due to concern for the safety of pedestrians. The plate on the vehicle also turned out to have been stolen and did not belong to a Honda, police said.
The investigation is ongoing. Police later clarified that the auto burglaries report had not been accurate — no burglaries had taken place. Rather, the two men were seen allegedly peering into car windows.
