SWAT team arrests 4 after armed robbery in Olympia Tuesday
The Thurston County SWAT team arrested four people Tuesday morning at a house on Olympia’s east side after they refused to come out for police. All four were later booked into the Thurston County jail on suspicion of committing an armed robbery in the early morning hours.
About 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, Olympia police officers were dispatched to a robbery that involved a gun in the 700 block of State Avenue Northeast, Lt. Paul Lower told The Olympian.
The victim told officers he had come down from Seattle to meet a woman he knew. But when the woman pulled up in a car, he got in and found there were three or four other people inside, according to Lower.
A passenger in the back seat asked the victim for his phone, and he gave it to the passenger. When he got it back, he realized the passenger had taken money out of one of his accounts.
When he confronted the passenger about it, another passenger took out a hand gun, pointed it at him, and demanded his phone again, Lower told The Olympian.
After the passenger handed his phone back, the victim got out of the car and called police.
The victim knew the suspects, and police were able to track them to a house on the 300 block of Pear Street Northeast on Olympia’s east side. But when officers knocked on the door, the people inside the house turned off the lights and refused to respond.
Knowing that a handgun was involved in the alleged crime, officers called the county SWAT team for assistance and got a search warrant to enter the building, according to Lower.
The SWAT team arrived at about 6 a.m. and used “noise distraction devices” at the front door, which brought the suspects out of the house, Lower said. SWAT officers arrested two men and two women without incident.
Olympia police interviewed the suspects, all of whom are in their early 20s, and had probable cause to believe they collaborated to commit the crime, Lower said. They were booked into jail on suspicion of first-degree robbery.
This story was originally published December 24, 2019 at 10:17 AM.
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