Chester Sam­bra­no

The Po­lice Ser­vice says quick think­ing by an off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of a male sus­pect and the seizure of a firearm dur­ing an at­tempt­ed rob­bery in­ci­dent yes­ter­day morn­ing. 

Re­ports in­di­cate that a male vic­tim was pro­ceed­ing south in his ve­hi­cle along Mau­si­ca Road around 12:38 am, on Sun­day when he came to a stop at the traf­fic lights. 

He al­leges he ob­served two men, one armed with a gun, ap­proach his ve­hi­cle from be­hind and at­tempt to open his ve­hi­cle door.

The vic­tim drove off, but the men fol­lowed him. 

A mo­torist who was parked near­by, ex­it­ed his ve­hi­cle and an­nounced loud­ly to the sus­pects that he was a po­lice of­fi­cer. The armed sus­pect is al­leged to have point­ed the gun in the di­rec­tion of the off-du­ty of­fi­cer, who be­came fear­ful for his life and drew his per­son­al firearm.

The of­fi­cer fired sev­er­al shots in the di­rec­tion of the sus­pect, who ran a short dis­tance away and then fell on­to the road­way. The off-du­ty of­fi­cer gave chase and re­port­ed­ly re­lieved the sus­pect of one Beretta pis­tol, loaded with 14 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

The sec­ond sus­pect man­aged to es­cape. Of­fi­cers of the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion were con­tact­ed and they took pos­ses­sion of the firearm and con­veyed the sus­pect, a 31-year-old man, to the Ari­ma hos­pi­tal for treat­ment to gun­shot wounds to his leg. 

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.