Victim Tracks Robbery Suspect : Crime: A restaurant owner calls deputies on a neighbor’s portable phone. Authorities find the man in a closet after an eight-hour standoff.

A Lake Los Angeles man was arrested Tuesday morning after being followed home by an owner of a restaurant he allegedly robbed, authorities said.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrested Alfonso Manfredonia, 39, about 5 a.m. after an eight-hour standoff. Deputies fired tear gas into Manfredonia’s house in the 40300 block of 164th Street in the small desert community near Palmdale. Manfredonia was found hiding in a closet and was uninjured.

Manfredonia allegedly had robbed the nearby King Richard’s Pizza, Etc. of about $500 and fired a shot at Kevin Eldredge, who followed him to his house, Deputy George Ducoulombier said.

Eldredge, 24, a computer consultant whose family owns the restaurant, was temporarily working there at the time of the robbery. He was unhurt--and unshaken--by the episode.

“I was kind of mad,” Eldredge said. “I work hard for my money and it seems someone is always trying to take it away. I have a bad attitude about people like that. After thinking about it, if it happened again I think I would do the same thing.”

The incident began about 8:45 p.m. Monday when a masked gunman walked into the pizza shop at 17051 E. Ave. O and ordered Eldredge to empty the cash register. Afterward, the man ran to a pickup truck and drove away. Eldredge said he ran to his own car and began following with his car’s lights out.

“I kept a safe distance,” Eldredge said. “He was actually stupid enough to go to his home.”

After the robber appeared to go into the house on 164th Street, about half a mile from the pizza shop, Eldredge drove slowly by the house. Suddenly, he saw the gunman run back to his pickup and heard a buzzing sound he believes was a bullet zipping past his car.

The pickup truck pulled out into the road about 100 yards behind Eldredge but stopped. Eldredge said the driver got out and walked down an alley to the rear of the house. A neighbor who saw the commotion gave Eldredge a portable phone to call deputies. The restaurant manager watched the house until deputies arrived.

A Sheriff’s Department Special Weapons Team surrounded the house but Manfredonia refused to come out.

After hours of fruitless negotiations by phone and bullhorn, deputies set off two diversionary devices--explosives that emit a loud, disorienting blast--in front and behind the house at 4 a.m.

About 20 minutes later, tear gas was fired into the residence. When Manfredonia still did not come out, deputies entered the house and found him in a closet. He was arrested on suspicion of robbery and was being held at the jail in the department’s Palmdale station.

Homes on all sides of the house were evacuated and traffic into the neighborhood was barred during the incident.

Deputies did not find the gun allegedly used but planned another search of the house and area around it, officials said.