Witness to purse-snatching leads police to suspects

A woman whose purse was snatched in the Wal-Mart parking lot Monday wasn’t without it for long, thanks to help from a passing motorist.

Yakima police arrested two juvenile males, one 15 and one 17, shortly after the robbery on the east side of the Wal-Mart lot.

 A passing driver who saw the suspects grab the 69-year-old woman’s purse called police as he followed the younger juvenile to Sarg Hubbard Park.

Capt. Greg Copeland said the boy with the purse then ran from the park back toward Wal-Mart, near where the victim was, and dropped the purse, which the witness retrieved.

Soon after officers arrived, they found one juvenile hiding in a bathroom at the Mazda dealership next to Wal-Mart. The other suspect had run across Terrace Heights Drive and was arrested there.

Both teens were booked at the juvenile detention center on suspicion of first-degree robbery.

Copeland said there is no connection between Monday’s robbery and another incident Saturday afternoon in the parking lot of the Wray’s grocery store at 56th and Summitview avenues. In that incident, two suspects approached a 66-year-old woman who was loading groceries into her car, knocked her to the ground and took her purse. No arrests have been made.

Although there were two purse-snatchings in three days and the circumstances were similar, Copeland said this type of crime is infrequent in Yakima.

“It happens once in a while,” he said, acknowledging that such robberies generate more sympathy when the victims are vulnerable, elderly women.
“It’s not a common thing,” he added.