Assemblyman Helps Arrest Heist Suspects
State Assemblyman Ken Maddox, a reserve officer for the Tustin Police Department, helped arrest two bank robbery suspects Monday.
The California Federal branch on 17th Street and City Bank on Irvine Boulevard were robbed within 30 minutes of each other. Witnesses gave similar descriptions of the robbers in each incident, investigators said.
Maddox (R-Garden Grove) was one of the first officers to arrive at City Bank. He and another officer spotted Carlos Mellizo, 21, and David Mellizo, 19, getting into a pickup outside the bank. The brothers, both of Murrieta, matched the descriptions of the suspects, authorities said, and may have been involved in bank heists in Orange and Riverside counties.
Maddox said he used his patrol car to cut off the truck and held the men at gunpoint while he and other officers waited for backup.
It was just another day at work, said Maddox, who was a full-time police officer in Tustin for seven years before being elected to the Assembly in 1998.
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