LONG BEACH : Police Deliver Pizza With Cheese, Hold the Customer
The Long Beach teen-ager ordered two large pepperoni pizzas, but the cops brought cheese instead. Then the customer got delivered to Juvenile Hall.
Long Beach police said Monday that they arrested the 17-year-old in a pizza delivery “sting” to foil a rash of phone-in ambush robberies.
Employees from Pizza X Two thought they recognized the voice of a robber who preyed on delivery people when he phoned in an order Sunday night. After they called police, Officer Erik Burks posed as a delivery man while his partner hid in the back of the car with a police radio.
Nobody was home at the house, where a delivery man had reported being robbed several times. But when Burks started back to the car, a teen-ager appeared with a seven-inch kitchen knife, demanding the money and the pizza. The officers identified themselves, then caught him after a foot chase. The youth was arrested on suspicion of robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
The original order? “Two large pepperonis and a six-pack of soda,” said police spokeswoman Karen Kerr. “They really only made up two cheese.”
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