Originally published as a City of Palo Alto press release:
“Palo Alto, CA – Detectives obtained charges on two suspects this week for their participation in an armed robbery of a Palo Alto tobacco store that occurred in January. Both suspects had already been arrested for other regional armed robberies by the San Jose Police Department back in April.
On Thursday, January 13, 2022, at about 9:54 p.m., our 24-hour dispatch center received a call from the clerk at Raw Smoke Shop at 265 California Avenue reporting he had just been pistol-whipped and robbed by a group of eight suspects. Police responded immediately, but the suspects had already fled the scene. The victim sustained minor injuries to his head but declined medical attention. For more information about the robbery, read the news release we distributed about it on January 14.
Detectives began actively investigating this incident, and soon learned that the suspects had been involved in multiple other armed robberies throughout the Bay Area. The San Jose Police Department coordinated a multi-jurisdictional, long-term investigation that resulted in the arrest of six suspects on April 14. For more information about that investigation, read the San Jose Police Department news release from April 18. Palo Alto detectives were able to connect two of those six suspects to the Raw Smoke Shop robbery.
Detectives submitted the case to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, who filed one felony charge of robbery against each of the two suspects (18-year-old Michael Earle of Menlo Park and 19-year-old Andrew Manuel Maravilla-Lopez of Hayward). A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge signed warrants for their arrest, and on June 14, police served the warrants while both men were still in custody at the Elmwood Correctional Facility from their April 14 arrests. The booking photos from their April 14 arrests, as well as previously-released surveillance images from the Palo Alto robbery identifying Earle and Maravilla-Lopez, appear above.
The investigation into the identities of the remaining six outstanding suspects in the Palo Alto robbery is ongoing. Police do not have evidence connecting any of the other suspects arrested by the San Jose Police Department on April 14 to the Palo Alto crime.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call our 24-hour dispatch center at (650) 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be e-mailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent via text message or voice mail to (650) 383-8984.”
