Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Sandra Yi and Nicole Gonzales reportingA fatal armed robbery in Salt Lake City last week may be part of string of robberies that happened this weekend. Police in several cities are now part of the investigation.
On Saturday, the Winger's restaurant at 530 W. 500 South in Bountiful was robbed. It happened around 9 p.m. West Bountiful Police Chief Randy Lloyd said the robbers are very aggressive and very dangerous. He said, "They're in there 30 seconds. It's that fast."
Police say when a cook looked out the back door to get a better description, he saw the flash from a gunshot. He was not hurt.
The men escaped in a getaway car, possibly a dark-colored Buick. Police are still looking at interviews from 25 people who were in the restaurant at the time.
The company that runs the Winger's restaurant says it's odd that robbers would target their business because with credit cards, casual dining restaurants don't carry much cash. The company says the restaurant was almost full of customers, too. Scott Slaymaker, of the Slaymaker Group, says, "The fact that it happened during restaurant hours, I've been in the business 30 years. I've never seen anything quite like this before."
Regardless of who these men are, police they say they're getting much more brazen. "I mean, it goes without saying that they've escalated in the type of, you know, what they're willing to do, and the seriousness of it; and they obviously need to be caught before this gets any further out of hand," said Lloyd. "They come in, the shorter of the two is the one that does most of the talking in our particular incident, demands the money. The taller of the two stands back with the shotgun."
That's exactly how a witness described the men involved in a robbery at the Chuck-A-Rama restaurant on 744 E. 400 South in Salt Lake around 8 p.m. on Saturday.
Brian was at the register when the men walked in. He even got a look at the man holding the gun, when his mask slid down his face. "As I'm standing there, there was a guy standing next to me all of a sudden with a rifle," he said. "The guy just looked at me, and I just didn't move as they were doing what they did."
Police can't deny the similarities. They say the suspects' descriptions also fit that of the men involved in a fatal robbery at the Family Dollar store in Glendale last week.
If the same men are behind them all, police want to find them quickly. Jared Wihongi, spokesman for the Salt Lake Police Department, said, "They get small amounts of cash that aren't going to last a long time apparently. If they're connected again with the other robberies that have happened, then it doesn't appear that they are going to stop any time soon."
Chuck-A-Rama has surveillance video, but police aren't sure if they'll release it because they say it doesn't show much.
E-mail: syi@ksl.com
E-mail: ngonzales@ksl.com
