Police capture alleged robbers

With a tip from an Agua Caliente resident, Sonoma police nabbed two teenagers less than an hour after they allegedly robbed at gunpoint the recycling center behind the Safeway store in Sonoma.

Police said the two teens robbed three people at the recycling center behind the West Napa Street grocery store shortly before 4 p.m. The victims said the two teens, a white male and a Latino male, demanded money from them, warning them that they also had a machine gun.

The suspects then fled north on Fifth Street West in a black sports car that had its license plate bent up to avoid detection, said Sonoma Police Sgt. Dave Thompson.

Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies and the sheriff’s helicopter were called in to join the search.

Then at 4:25 p.m., a resident of the El Portola neighborhood in Agua Caliente reported he had seen two men in a black Mitsubishi Eclipse who appeared to be hiding out in the area. The El Portola resident told police the car’s license plate was bent up.

“That’s when we scrambled to that area,” said Thompson.

As patrol cars arrived, the Mitsubishi “scooted out” the back end of the neighborhood, he said. A deputy pursued the car on Highway 12 and during the chase, a handgun was seen thrown from the car near Nuns Canyon Road on Highway 12. The two men then pulled over just east of Dunbar Road and were soon arrested.

Traffic was blocked during the arrest. A person waiting in traffic spotted the gun, picked it up and handed it to deputies in the area, Thompson said.

The two teenagers, Ramon Llamas, 19, of Napa and a 16-year-old boy, also of Napa, were arrested and turned over to Sheriff’s detectives from the Violent Crimes Unit for further investigation.