Device Wins Praise for Capture of Robbers : Crime: Transmitter tracked Builder’s Emporium suspects. Designed for banks, the system is now being used by other businesses.

An electronic tracking device more widely known for getting the drop on bank robbers won praise Monday from executives of a home improvement store chain, a day after two suspects were caught with money allegedly stolen at gunpoint from one of the company’s outlets.

“It worked as it was supposed to work, and we’re very thankful that our associates inside the store were not injured,” said Ron Clark, assistant vice president with Builder’s Emporium in Irvine.

Clark said Builder’s Emporium began using the tiny device recently because some of its stores have been hit by a rash of robberies. In this case, a transmitter hidden in a store money bag enabled law enforcement officers in cars and a helicopter to track the fleeing suspects.

The Anaheim robbery took place Sunday night when two men hid inside the Builder’s Emporium at 3420 Lincoln Ave. and then confronted the assistant manager after the store closed at 7 p.m. Employees were forced to lie down on the floor of a vault room and then the suspects tied them up, according to Clark and a police spokesman.

The assistant manager opened the safe at gunpoint, and the robbers emptied it of cash, including “bait money” that contained the signaling device, Clark said.

The suspects left the store and drove north on the Riverside Freeway.

After a few minutes, the employees freed themselves. They telephoned police and told them that the robbers had taken bait money with a tracking device.

An Anaheim helicopter pilot tracked the suspected getaway car electronically and pursued it north into Los Angeles County, where a Los Angeles County sheriff’s helicopter pilot picked up the signal, said sheriff’s Lt. James Valdez.

“We were literally on top of the situation,” Valdez said.

On the ground, sheriff’s deputies pursued the car as the pilot radioed its location, arresting the suspects in Compton, Valdez said.

The manufacturer and law enforcement officials were reluctant to publicly discuss details of the secret monitoring device. But experts in the security field said the devices, which were developed for banks, are being used more frequently by other businesses.

Telephone calls to ProNet Inc., in Texas, parent company of the device’s manufacturer Electronic Tracking Systems Inc., of Plano, Tex., were not returned.

The system, now in use in several large Western cities, involves an electronic transmitter that is usually concealed in the loot handed to a robber. Once activated, the transmitter emits signals that guide police to the device.

“If the crooks found out about the devices, they would be more cautious and look for them,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Ross Rudin. “They may throw the device out of the car.”

Anaheim police Lt. John Cross said: “I don’t even want to talk about the device.”

Clark, of Builder’s Emporium, said that the high crime rate in California prompted the chain to add the devices to store security as a means of “protecting our assets and our employees.”

He indicated that the chain may increase use of the devices, especially after Sunday’s capture of the two robbery suspects. Builder’s Emporium has 108 stores in Nevada, Texas, New Mexico and California.

The identities of the two robbery suspects were not immediately available.