Robbery Suspect Tripped Up by Fuzzy Pink Slippers

A suspect in a harrowing takeover robbery Monday was caught red-handed. Or rather, pink-footed.

The story ends when police noticed a man dressed in a business suit and fuzzy pink bedroom slippers walking quickly down the street.

The story begins several hours earlier, when five armed robbers barged into the Orange County Federal Credit Union on Brookhurst Street, kicking people and demanding money. The robbers escaped with an undisclosed amount of money and fled to Paramount, police said. There, one of them reportedly broke into an apartment to find a change of clothes, authorities said.

“He knew we were looking for him and he probably wanted to change his appearance as much as possible,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas said. “The suit was OK. But he really should have taken less of a fashion risk with the shoes.”

Police did not release the names of the 33-year-old man or the woman with him, who had an outstanding arrest warrant. They were booked into the Anaheim City Jail and bail was set at $50,000 each.

The other suspects remained at large Monday night.

Police said they had fled from the credit union in a white Ford Explorer, which a police helicopter soon spotted and followed.

In Paramount, police found the abandoned Explorer and, nearby, a beige Chevrolet Caprice with a large quantity of cash.

Officers questioned several people in the Paramount Boulevard apartment complex before spotting the man with the slippers, Vargas said.

“We talked to him, and he couldn’t give us a logical reason for wearing the slippers, and he and the woman had conflicting stories about why they were there and where they were going,” Vargas said. “And he was a real macho male wearing these things on his feet.”

A few minutes later, police took a burglary report from a bewildered resident at the complex who reported clothes and pink slippers were missing.

“That’s when we knew we had our guy,” Vargas said.