INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — Police arrested three armed robbery suspects following a chase that led to the lockdown of four Independence schools Tuesday morning.
Police say that the three suspects were wanted in connection to an armed robbery at a home near Owens School Road and Argo Road in eastern Jackson County.
The homeowner was upstairs in his computer room above his detached garage when the suspects pulled their white pickup truck into his house garage. He says they were wearing ski masks and were carrying handguns.
“Actually, I picked up a ball bat,” Robert Walls, the homeowner said. “I don’t know what I was thinking there, but yea. Ball bat versus gun? Yeah. Thought process wasn’t working.”
Walls says he told them to get out and says one of the suspects pointed a gun at him before jumping in the truck and speeding away. Walls called the police and gave a detailed description of the truck.
A short time later, a Jackson County Sheriff’s deputy spotted the suspect’s truck near 291 Highway and Gudgell Road. Following a brief chase, the truck crashed and the three suspects fled.
“I heard tires squealing and I saw this white truck coming down here and he fish tailed two or three times, hit the light pole and ran up into the neighbor yard,” said Carla Nesbit, a witness.
The deputy officer who first spotted the suspects flattened his front left tire when he popped up on a curb so the chase ended quickly.
“The deputy exercised extreme caution when coming down through the neighborhood,” Jackson County Sheriff Mike Sharp said. “He wasn’t traveling at a high rate of speed.”
Police say that one suspect surrendered immediately, while a K-9 unit tracked the other two suspects to a nearby creek, where they were taken into custody in the area of East 25th Terrace and South Whitney around 10:30 a.m.
There were no injuries reported in the incident. The identities of the suspects have not yet been released.
Blackburn Elementary School and Bridger, Bingham, and Pioneer Ridge middle schools in the Independence School District were placed under lockdown, but it was lifted shortly after the suspects were apprehended.
