Police officers arrested two 17-year-old boys Wednesday afternoon after an online transaction allegedly turned into an armed robbery in the parking lot of an east Vancouver Red Robin, the second such incident there in the past two days.
The two are also suspected in a robbery at a nearby Baja Fresh Mexican Grill.
On Tuesday at 9:36 p.m., according to Vancouver Police Department spokeswoman Kim Kapp, someone called 911 about a robbery in the Red Robin restaurant at 801 S.E. 160th Ave.
A would-be buyer displayed a handgun, took the item and then fled on foot, Kapp said in an email. No one was hurt, she said.
Then, at about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, someone else reported being robbed at gunpoint while trying to complete an online sale at the same location.
The details of what happened and the description of the suspect were very similar to the previous robbery, the department said in a news release. Kapp said the suspect was seen heading toward a nearby apartment complex.
Police responded to the area and determined the suspect in the second Red Robin robbery was in Fisher’s Mill Apartments, at 1000 S.E. 160th Ave. SWAT officers arrived and detained five people without incident, police said.
Police later found there was a third robbery that day, at almost the same time as the second Red Robin robbery, this one at the Baja Fresh at 16010 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd.
Detectives interviewed those found in the apartment unit, and police arrested two 17-year-old boys, one on suspicion of two counts of first-degree robbery and the other on suspicion of three counts of first-degree robbery. Both were booked into the county juvenile detention center.
Mitchell Larson, 22, was with his mother for the planned sale Tuesday night. Earlier, while in Castle Rock, she agreed to ferry a PlayStation video game console Larson’s cousin, who lives in Castle Rock, was selling through OfferUp.com to a buyer in Vancouver, and to help complete the sale.
Everything about it, Larson’s cousin assured him, seemed above board.
“I ended up reading the messages later on and it did not seem legit,” Larson said.
Larson’s mother asked him to come along for the sale. It was clear something was odd shortly after they met the buyer at the Red Robin’s lobby.
“This dude just reeks of weed,” he recalled, adding the young man behaved oddly, and made an awkward point to compliment his mother’s Louis Vuitton purse.
The buyer kept repeating that his uncle, who had the money, was in the restaurant’s restroom, and he asked several times to hold the console. Larson had told him he’d have to produce the money first. At one point, after he reached for it again, the young man then lifted his shirt, flashing a handgun tucked into his pants, Larson said.
“And I just gave it to him,” Larson said. “I’m like, ‘Dude you can have it, it’s not even mine.’ ”
The robberies happened days after police encouraged people to use designated safe exchange zones — available in parking lots at the Vancouver Police Department’s administration, west and east precinct buildings and the Clark County Sheriff’s Office West Precinct office — where people can go to finish online transactions. The zones offer a safe alternative to meeting a stranger at home or a random location.
Larson said he and his mother are doing fine.
“I went and got coffee with her today and we were joking about it,” he said. “This will make a great story for the Christmas party.”
