Robbers Leave Young Alleged Partner Behind : Crime: Victims catch the 11-year-old suspect when an in-home heist goes awry and the two armed adults with him flee.

When two armed robbers fled from a home they had invaded, after shooting one of the victims, they left behind a small clue--an 11-year-old alleged accomplice.

Police were holding the boy at the Van Nuys station Tuesday on suspicion of attempted robbery. They were trying to locate his parents, who were out of town, said Detective Mel Arnold.

Arnold said the 11-year-old and two adult men left their homes in the MacArthur Park area Monday night and at about 10 p.m. barged into a Panorama City apartment in search of jewelry. The robbers apparently knew the apartment had a safe containing jewelry and other valuable items, Arnold said.

Threatening the family members with pistols, the robbers forced them to the floor, demanding jewelry and cash, the detective said. As they tried to open the safe, other family members arrived home, surprising them, and in the confusion one of the residents tried to flee through a window.

One of the robbers shot the man once in the arm, Arnold said. He was treated for a superficial wound and released, Arnold said.

The victims, including the wounded man, chased the robbers from the building. The two adults escaped but the victims tackled the boy.

“They knew the kid didn’t have a gun,” Arnold said. “And when things started unraveling, they went after him.”

Arnold said the two men might have jumped into a car parked a few blocks away and sped off, abandoning their young assistant.

Arnold said there are many unanswered questions about the little boy and the robbery, including why the robbers came all the way from near Downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley for the holdup, and why they thought there were valuables in the house. The identity of the victims was withheld while police investigated.

The boy, a student at a Los Angeles junior high school, has cooperated with police to an extent, Arnold said, but would not identify his companions. Arnold declined to say if the boy had a criminal record, but added that it was not the first time police had discovered a very young accomplice allegedly working with adult criminals.

“I remember a 12-year-old kid we arrested after a jewelry heist at the fashion mall in Sherman Oaks three years ago,” Arnold said.