145. The Starbucks Robbery

It is a crime that is getting to be common in Los Angeles. Customers are enjoying their meals at a restaurant. Two or more criminals stroll in and start waving their guns at everyone. They demand that everyone put their wallets or empty their purses into a bag, and then the gunmen stroll out. They usually wear hoodies or baseball caps with sunglasses to thwart identification.At 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, the business establishment was a Starbucks. Three young men walked in, emptied the cash register, robbed the employees and the customers, and walked out to their stolen SUV. The police were able to respond quickly. A chase ended with one police car ramming the SUV from behind on the Third Street overpass. The SUV came to a stop, but, as usually happens, the three criminals were unhurt. They immediately hopped out of the SUV and started running in three different directions. It took about 10 minutes to catch two of them; one had hidden in a dumpster, and the other had broken a car window and hidden in the car.The third one, instead of running, had decided it was quicker to jump off the overpass onto the freeway 20 feet below. He landed in an emergency lane, but did not get up and run. He did not get up at all. When police got to him, he was dead. “Too bad he wasn’t holding hands with the other two when he jumped,” said one officer, who asked to remain nameless.