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Wednesday, April 4, 2001




CRAIG T. KOJIMA / STAR-BULLETIN
A police technician tried to get fingerprints off of the front
door of the Alpha Video store today at Stadium Mall.



Robbers escape
in close getaway

A chase by the victim and
others nearly nabs one suspect


By Nelson Daranciang
Star-Bulletin

Two video store robbers got away with a bag full of cash, checks, receipts, scrapes and bruises yesterday, but only after firing shots over the heads of their victim and others who tried to help.

Sam Chu opened the Stadium Mall Alpha Video store at 4510 Salt Lake Blvd. at 8:45 a.m. to collect the cash and receipts from the previous day's business.

"Normally I come in, I should have locked (the door). But I just went there, turned on the light," Chu said.

Two men followed Chu into the store, grabbed a bag sitting on the counter containing collections from other stores and took off running. Chu gave chase, running past the front of Goodyear Auto Center.

"These two guys were running right in front of us. And the guy from the video place was yelling, 'Help, help, stop these guys!" said Casiano Pagdilao, Goodyear employee.

Pagdilao and other Goodyear employees joined the chase just as Chu tackled one of the robbers. The other robber turned around, pulled out a gun from his jacket and fired.

The two robbers then continued running toward Salt Lake Boulevard with Chu and others, some throwing rocks, in pursuit.

"The guy with the gun was already in the middle of the street, and he fired another shot," said Pagdilao.

So they went after the second guy. "So we were chasing him, flying the rocks trying to knock him down," said Edwin Wise, Goodyear Auto Center manager, "and one of the rocks finally hit him, hit him in the shoulder, and he just dropped in the middle of the road. We thought we had him already."

Chu caught up with the robber and tackled him again. But as Chu wrestled with the fallen robber, a red sport utility vehicle pulled up with the armed robber sitting in the back seat.

"He pulled up toward us, picked up the other guy. And while he was picking up the other guy, the guy that was on the ground that got hurt, started yelling out, 'Shoot them, shoot them!'" said Shon Galacgac, Goodyear employee.

The armed robber then stuck a gun out of the SUV and fired more shots into the air. Chu released the other robber, who crawled into the SUV, which sped off toward Radford High.

Police are looking for two men, in their late 20s to early 30s, the driver and a red, late-model, two-door Ford Explorer with dark tinted windows and a tinted plastic cover over the rear license plate. Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 955-8300.



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