Two juveniles were arrested in Glendale Wednesday in connection with an armed robbery that occurred in an In-N-Out Burger parking lot in Burbank after the suspects abandoned their vehicle and hid on the Benjamin Franklin Elementary School campus.
Burbank Police officers saw a black Mercedes-Benz SUV speed away from the area of the In-N-Out Burger on North First Street in Burbank at about 7:10 p.m. on Wednesday.
Reports say that officers attempted to stop the vehicle; however, the driver fled southbound on the 5 Freeway. Officers did not initiate a pursuit.
“A short time later, Burbank Police were notified of an armed robbery that occurred in the parking lot of In-N-Out, and that the suspect vehicle description matched the Mercedes-Benz seen earlier,” Burbank Police spokesman Sgt. Stephen Turner wrote in a statement Thursday night.
Police officers responded and interviewed two victims, who reported being robbed at gunpoint by two masked suspects. Personal property was stolen from the victims in the armed robbery.
According to reports, officers investigating the crime later located the suspect vehicle, abandoned in the city of Glendale.
Witnesses in the area reporting seeing two people who matched the robbery suspects’ descriptions run from the vehicle onto the Benjamin Franklin Elementary campus in Glendale.
“A perimeter was established with the assistance of the Glendale Police Department. A search was performed using police K-9s from both Glendale PD and Burbank PD. During the search, one of the suspects was located, but refused to comply with officers’ commands. The suspect was ultimately bitten by a Glendale Police K-9 before being taken into custody. The second suspect surrendered to officers and was taken into custody,” police said.
Officers performed a comprehensive search of the school campus and the area where the suspects were taken into custody with the assistance of an article-detecting K-9, according to police reports.
“No weapons were found. However, evidence linking the suspects to the robbery was found, including the victims’ property,” police said.
The suspects have been identified as a 15-year-old male and a 16-year-old male, both residents of Los Angeles. They were arrested on suspicion of armed robbery and transported to a juvenile detention facility.
Formal charges are pending review by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
First published in the September 9 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
