Police arrest armed robbery suspect by using stolen cellphone to track location

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) — San Diego police tracked down and arrested a suspected armed robber using a cellphone he stole during a hold-up at a Grantville-area taco shop, police said Wednesday.

The gunman, wearing a baseball cap and hood, walked into the eatery in the 10400 block of San Diego Mission Road just before 7 p.m. Tuesday and ordered everyone to the ground, San Diego police officer John Buttle said. Employees and customers complied with the robber’s demands.

"One customer dropped her purse and the suspect picked it up as he was leaving,” Buttle said. "Inside the purse was the customer’s cellphone.”

Officers were able to track that phone to the 7600 block of Navajo Road, about six miles from where the robbery occurred, where "two suspects were taken into custody and a gun was discovered,” Buttle said.

The name of the suspects were not immediately released, and police did not immediately discuss the role of the second suspect, if any, in the robbery.