Two charged in Tinley Park armed robbery
By Susan DeMar Lafferty slafferty@southtownstar.com January 5, 2013 10:06PM
Larone Smith (left) and Lazeric Watkins
Updated: March 7, 2013 2:29AM
Two Chicago men were charged with armed robbery Friday following the Wednesday robbery of a T-Mobile store in Tinley Park, police said.
Lazeric Watkins, 24, 6947 S. Peoria St., and Larone Smith, 24, 57 W. 108th Place, appeared in court Friday, with bail set at $500,000 for Smith and $250,000 for Watkins, according to Tinley Park police.
The men, one of whom had a gun, allegedly robbed a cell phone store in the 16200 block of Harlem Avenue about 7:10 p.m. Wednesday and then fled with cell phones, police said.
“Employees gave us a good description of the car. Officers saw it, went to stop it, and, of course, they took off,” Tinley Park Police Chief Steve Neubauer said.
They led police to Interstate 57, south to Interstate 80 and west to LaGrange Road, he said.
Police backed off because it was just getting “too dangerous for the public at large,” Neubauer said.
The suspects lost control of the car and slid off U.S. 6 and crashed the car near New Lenox. Aided by multiple agencies, police took three men into custody, he said.
No one was injured in the accident.
The third man was released after the investigation, police said.
One cell phone store employee suffered a minor injury, but no gun was fired, Neubauer said.
Police recovered several of the stolen cell phones, he said.
