Restaurant with Metro officers bad place to rob

Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004 | 11:20 a.m.

An 18-year-old man picked the wrong business to rob this morning -- a restaurant where five off-duty Metro Police vice-narcotics detectives were eating breakfast.

The robbery occurred about 4:15 a.m. at the Road Runner bar and restaurant at 9820 W. Flamingo Road near the Las Vegas Beltway.

Lt. Ted Snodgrass said the man walked up to the bar, pointed a gun at the bartender and demanded money. After the bartender handed over an undisclosed amount of cash, the man fled in a car.

The detectives weren't sitting in the bar area so they didn't see the robbery occur, and the suspect didn't make a scene, but they soon realized something wasn't right and ran to the parking lot, where they got into their unmarked Metro vehicles and followed the suspect, Snodgrass said.

One of the detectives said he saw a muzzle flash and thought the suspect was firing his gun at them, but police this morning hadn't determined if the gun had been fired. The detective did not fire at the suspect, he said.

They called for on-duty officers in marked police cruisers to conduct a traffic stop. The suspect pulled over at Rainbow Boulevard and Cheyenne Avenue and surrendered. He was arrested on a robbery charge and related offenses.

The suspect allegedly told police he robbed the bar with a screwdriver, but Snodgrass said it appears he threw the gun out of the car while fleeing. Officers found a Ruger revolver matching the bartender's description of the gun on the Las Vegas Beltway near Flamingo.

"There are many things that could have gone wrong," Snodgrass said, pointing out that if the detectives had confronted the robber inside the restaurant, it could have resulted in a shootout.

The detectives "did an outstanding job," Snodgrass said.

A manager at the restaurant declined to comment this morning.