Witness involvement and a police officer’s legs led to the arrest Monday night of two men suspected in at least two Oakland robberies and an Alameda carjacking, authorities said Tuesday.
The suspects’ demise began about 6:20 p.m. Monday in the 3700 block of Webster Street in Oakland when one of them, identified by police as Amanuel Moreno, 19, who lives in the area, tried to rob a 39-year-old Kaiser Hospital nurse of his cellphone at gunpoint. The victim resisted, and the robber pistol-whipped him before running off.
Several witnesses began chasing the man as police, alerted by phone calls, responded to the area.
Officers Ray Ward and Nickola MacGregor, who were in a patrol car, were flagged down. Moreno was arrested in the 3800 block of Webster after running several blocks in different directions while shedding some of his clothing, police said.
Moreno was in the officers’ car when a 1996 blue-and-white Toyota drove by them.
The officers remembered from Alameda police broadcasts that the vehicle had been stolen from a 26-year-old Alameda woman at gunpoint about 9 p.m. Friday at Oak Street and San Antonio Avenue. Ward began chasing it on foot.
The car stopped on the Webster Street side of Mosswood Park a few blocks away, and the driver, identified by police as Kristopher Swayne, 19, of San Leandro, jumped out and ran through the park.
He was arrested in a parking lot in the 3500 block of Broadway as he hid under a car.
Police said Swayne had dropped Moreno off to commit the robbery of the nurse and had come back to pick him up when Ward and MacGregor saw him.
Police said that besides the Alameda carjacking and the Webster Street attempted robbery, the two are suspected of robbing an ice cream vendor in the 2200 block of East 12th Street in Oakland about 5 p.m. Sunday.
Both were arrested on suspicion of armed robbery and carjacking.
