Police nab 2 in robbery

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 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, warned that they also had a machine gun and demanded money from them.

The teenagers 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 to join the search.

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 resident told police the car's license plate was bent up.

"That's when we scrambled to that area," Thompson said.

As patrol cars arrived, the Mitsubishi "scooted out" of 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. The two men 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, Thompson said.

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

-- Martin Espinoza