Tempe and Phoenix Police are searching for three suspects involved in a string of fast food robberies that have occurred at multiple McDonald’s and Subway restaurants in west Tempe and east Phoenix.
Suspects are considered armed and dangerous, Tempe Police Sgt. Steve Carbajal said. The suspects have fired guns inside of stores on at least two occasions, but no one was harmed.
“We’re not asking anybody to confront these individuals,” Carbajal said. “Just get to a safe position if you can, just be a good witness and that would help detectives if (witnesses) could provide good information.”
The most recent robbery attempt happened the morning of Nov. 7 at a McDonald’s restaurant at the 3000 block of South 48th Street where one of the suspects — a man described as between 30 and 45 years old — holding a handgun demanded money from employees and fired two shots toward the ceiling. The man was unable to get the money, however, according to a police press release.
This is the seventh robbery to have occurred since Sept. 15. Of the seven robberies, four of them happened on Baseline Road.
The robberies typically happen when the restaurant is about to close or open. The suspects take employees to the back of the store to obtain cash and then flee driving a white 1990 style van with a wood-style panel striping down the side, according to the release.
Restaurant surveillance revealed that one suspect is a black man in his late 20s to mid-30s, about 6-feet tall, with a muscular build. Another suspect is a white or Hispanic man with a skinny build in his early 20s, and the last suspect is believed to be a Filipino man with long bushy hair and about 5-feet-8-inches tall.
“It’s something for people to keep an eye out if they see something suspicious, they see someone that resembles these suspects and they see that van in the area, we’d want to know that right away,” Carbajal said.
If anyone has any information regarding these robberies, notify Tempe Police or Silent Witness at 480-WITNESS.
Tempe Police were unable to provide an estimate of stolen cash at this time of the investigation.
Reach the reporter at sraymund@asu.edu
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