2 Store Employees Foil Robbery Attempt; 2 Held

Two suspected would-be robbers were arrested after they attempted to strong-arm a pair of convenience store clerks, but were frightened off empty-handed when the store employees fought back, police said Friday.

The foiled attack marked the second time this week in Orange County that a pair of robbery suspects were caught after the intended victim refused to cooperate.

Garden Grove Police Sgt. Dave Kibler said that at 10:06 p.m. Thursday two unarmed men walked into an Arco AM-PM Minimart in the 13000 block of Harbor Boulevard.

Without saying a word, they approached the cash register where one unidentified clerk was working. They grabbed the clerk and began roughing him up, demanding cash, but the clerk refused.

Seconds later, a second store employee emerged from a back room and saw the struggle. He raced up to the men and tried to pull them off his partner, yelling loudly and striking them, Kibler said.

In a panic, the assailants fled empty-handed while the employees called police, giving a description of the car.

About 15 minutes later, officers stopped a car trying to enter the Garden Grove Freeway at the Euclid Avenue on-ramp and arrested the two men without incident.

They were identified as Robert Jack Munoz, 31, of Anaheim and Alfonso Pasallo Torres, 27, of Santa Ana. Both were being held on an unspecified amount of bail at Orange County Jail on attempted robbery charges.

On Monday, a La Habra woman foiled a pair of would-be bandits who tried to steal her car at gunpoint as she was leaving a department store.

Joan Lepman, 37, a nurse for a Whittier hospital, wrestled the armed man to the ground while stopping his partner from driving her Ford Bronco away. They fled.

Two suspects, Luis Gabriel Nava, 19, of Harbor City and a 17-year-old from Wilmington, were arrested half an hour after the 10:30 a.m. attack, police said.