Police Chase, Arrest 3 in Rolex Robbery : Crime: The expensive watch is taken from a Santa Monica car sales manager.

Three men who police said robbed a Santa Monica used car sales manager of his expensive Rolex watch Thursday morning were run down and captured a short time later by a fleet of squad cars guided by a police helicopter.

The three were shadowed for about 10 miles on the Santa Monica Freeway before police converged on their car, rammed it and arrested them, said Santa Monica Police Sgt. Steve Brackett.

Officers said they were investigating whether the three were involved in some of the other 50 Rolex robberies that have occurred on Los Angeles’ Westside in the last year.

Two men have been killed, including a nursery owner who was shot to death two weeks ago after refusing to turn over his Rolex, and as many as eight other victims have been injured in the robberies.

“No single Rolex bandit or group of bandits is at work in the city,” said Los Angeles Police Department Lt. Fred Nixon. “We’re getting different descriptions of suspects and different weapons reported.”

The robbery left longtime car salesman Bob Gordon, who had quickly surrendered his expensive Rolex watch to the armed men, pondering what to do with the diamond-studded time piece when he gets it back.

“I love that watch. It’s a sign of my success,” he said. “But I don’t think I can wear it, certainly not to work. It’s too dangerous.”

Gordon said he was working on his second cup of coffee Thursday morning, “sort of planning the day,” when he looked up at a pistol “pointed right at my heart.” The man behind it was motioning at Gordon’s $17,750 watch.

Gordon, who has been wearing his Rolex to work at Len Sheridan Toyota for five years, groaned to himself “because I’ve been reading about the robberies and I promised my daughter I wasn’t going to wear it so much anymore.”

Mindful that other Rolex owners have been wounded or killed fighting to keep their watches, Gordon said he “right away unclasped the watch and held my arm out” to the gunman and an accomplice. He said the robbers grabbed the watch, herded Gordon and two of his salesmen into an office and fled.

A short time later, Santa Monica police, responding to Gordon’s call, “got a break” and spotted a car matching the suspects’ vehicle speeding east on the Santa Monica Freeway, said Brackett.

When the car exited at Crenshaw Boulevard, about 10 miles from the dealership, police converged in what house painter Phil Holmes, working on a commercial building just off the freeway, termed “the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Holmes said police cars “came out of everywhere. . . . They were shouting on the loudspeakers and (had) sirens going.” Holmes said one of the suspects “got out and tried to run but he didn’t get a hundred feet.”

Brackett identified the suspects as Eric Jones, 23, of Gardena; his brother, Derrick Darnell Jones, 20, also of Gardena, and Isaac Williams, 21, of Los Angeles.

They had a 9-millimeter pistol as well as a Rolex that Gordon identified as his.

The suspects are being held in Santa Monica jail in lieu of $25,000 bail each.