Restaurant Siege Ended; 2 Men Arrested

Two gunmen who broke into a Reuben’s restaurant in Orange early Saturday morning and held three people hostage--including two men who had been taking cardboard from the restaurant--were captured after a six-hour standoff with police, authorities said.

The two men, one armed with a shotgun and the other with a pistol, broke into the closed restaurant about 3 a.m., apparently hoping to find employees still there with the night’s receipts, according to one police official.

They found only the 50-year-old night janitor and his wife and two men not connected to Reuben’s who had been helping themselves to discarded cardboard from the back of the Reuben’s/Coco’s complex on Tustin Avenue near the Orange Mall.

Hostages Put in Bathroom

The gunmen ordered the janitor and the other two men into the bathroom. The janitor’s wife escaped out the back and called the police on the 911 emergency line.

One police official said the three hostages were left tied up but unattended in the bathroom. They escaped, one by one, and were met by a small army of Orange police officers who had surrounded the building.

Police then tried repeatedly by loudspeaker and by telephone to contact the two gunmen, both in English and in Spanish. “No contact was ever made,” Police Sgt. Stan Gabel said.

Men Hiding in Attic

A special entry team of four officers and a police dog eventually went in and found the two men in the attic. They were captured without incident.

The names of the two gunmen and the three hostages were not released by police Saturday night.

Police had blocked off traffic along Tustin Avenue for much of the morning before the capture. Michael McVey, a Reuben’s spokesman, said he arrived on the scene about 7 a.m. and thought a nearby bank was being robbed.

“It was pretty exciting for a while; we’re just relieved that no one was hurt,” he said.