Robbery nets cash, jail

Two Napa residents were arrested near Glen Ellen Friday afternoon in connection with an armed robbery less than an hour earlier at the Safeway recycling center in Sonoma.
Nineteen-year-old Ramon Llamas and a 16-year-old accomplice were taken into custody without incident on Highway 12 near Dunbar Road shortly after leading deputies on a quick two-mile chase from the highway’s Arnold Drive intersection.
“They got up to 80 miles an hour,” Sonoma police Sgt. Dave Thompson said Monday, adding that a loaded 9 mm pistol was thrown from a passenger window of the pair’s black Mitsubishi Eclipse as the car sped past Nun’s Canyon Road. “We’re fortunate that nobody got injured … it could have been a lot worse.”
Vargas was scheduled to appear in Sonoma County Superior Court Tuesday morning for armed robbery and reckless driving to evade a peace officer – crimes which could collectively carry a maximum penalty of up to six years in prison – but that was still pending by press time.
“We don’t know what the charges are yet, because he’s still being arraigned,” Court Executive Assistant Heike Hegdahl said Tuesday morning. “The [District Attorney] might come in and say, ‘We want to do this, this and this’ at the time of the arraignment.”
Friday’s incident began just before 4 p.m., when two suspects pulled up to the West Napa Street Nex Cycle center – a converted shipping container with cut-out windows – allegedly flashed a gun at the two proprietors and their customer and demanded money.
“There’s no cash at these places,” Thompson said, explaining that customers redeem their recycling receipts inside the store but that the victims were carrying roughly $100 total. “They threatened that they had a machine gun as well in the car, then sped off northbound on Fifth Street West.”
Sheriff’s cruisers and the “Henry One” helicopter soon joined the search. The getaway car’s rear license plate was bent upward to obscure the number and avoid detection, but about 4:25 p.m. a resident of Agua Caliente’s El Portola neighborhood told police that two males in a black Mitsubishi Eclipse had been hiding in the bushes before being frightened off.
Ten minutes later, a deputy spotted the Eclipse near Highway 12 and Arnold Drive and gave pursuit, bringing the suspects to bay just east of Dunbar Road.
“They are in custody – one of course was booked into our Main Adult Detention facility, the other into our Juvenile Hall facility,” Det. Sgt. Tim Duke of the sheriff’s Violent Crimes Division said Monday. While unable to specifically comment due to the ongoing investigation, Duke said both had had prior run-ins with the law and added that investigators would be looking into the possibility of gang involvement.
In a statement released Monday, Sonoma police Chief Bret Sackett said he was “very proud of the on-scene management of the incident, resource deployment, and most importantly, the cooperative effort between the City [deputies] and Valley deputies. This case was ‘solved’ by smart citizens who were willing to get involved, alert dispatchers, and dedicated law enforcement officers.”