Alton armed robbery suspects arrested after standoff

ALTON — Officers’ final suspect in an armed robbery fell into their lap Thursday evening.

Alton police responded about 5:15 p.m. Thursday to a report that four men had robbed a Pocket cell phone store near the intersection of Five Mile Line and Bryan roads.

The store clerk told police one of the four criminals covered his face with a blue T-shirt, demanded mobile phones and cash, and displayed a gun during the robbery, said Enrique Sotelo, Alton’s interim police chief.

An Hidalgo County sheriff’s deputy spotted the black Chrysler 300 that the suspects took off in after the incident.

Officers arrested the vehicle’s two teenage occupants, who eventually told police the other duo was hiding out in the attic of a house on Kantulil Street, near the intersection of 5 1/2 Mile Line and Bryan Road, police said.

Police tried to coax the pair from the tiny attic but were unable to reach them at right away, Sotelo said. The suspects were hiding in a space only about 2 feet tall.

“We tried negotiations for a couple of hours,” Sotelo said. “We couldn’t get anybody out.”

Officers called in a canine unit from Palmview to try to scare the suspects from the attic, but the dog could barely fit inside and almost broke through the ceiling.

Finally, Sotelo crawled into the attic himself, he said, and pulled out one of the teens hiding beneath the fiberglass insulation.

Minutes later, the other crashed through the ceiling and onto the floor, where officers were waiting for him.

The four teens — ages 16-18 — will face aggravated robbery charges in connection with Thursday evening’s events, which wrapped up about 9:15 p.m., police said.

Officers recovered about 20 mobile phones and some cash believed to have been stolen from the store, Sotelo said. No injuries were reported in connection with the robbery or standoff.

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Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.