2 Armed Robberies Mar Holiday Weekend in Tosa

Wauwatosa's Memorial Day weekend turned terrifying for a resident and a motel clerk when they were victims of early morning holdups at gunpoint, one Sunday and one Monday.

According to police reports:

In the first incident, a resident of the 2600 block of North 68th Street was walking home from , 8828 W. North Ave., at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday when two young men or boys ran up to him from behind as he reached the corner of West North Avenue and North 85th Street.

One of them showed a small black revolver and the other grabbed him from behind around his shoulders and upper body. The assailant with the gun said, "Get his wallet and his watch."

The 34-year-old victim said that the two took his cash and driver's license but not his watch, then ran west on North Avenue for a block and then, he thought, turned north on North 86th Street where he lost sight of them. He then called police.

Police said that the victim was highly intoxicated when they interviewed him at the scene of the crime. He first said that he didn't get a good look at the robbers but then said he would be able to identify them.

Police searched the area with no results, and took the victim's shirt for possible DNA evidence because one of the robbers had grabbed it.

The robbery occurred only a few blocks from where a Wauwatosa couple were the victims of a few weeks ago. No gun was used in that incident and they reported three assailants.

Motel clerk forced to empty cash register

In the second incident, police were called at 2:39 a.m. to , 11811 W. Blue Mound Rd., to investigate the gunpoint robbery of the night desk clerk.

The clerk told officers he was sitting in the main office watching television when a man walked into the lobby and said, "Can I get a room?" The clerk went behind the counter and began to type on the computer. Seconds later he looked up into the barrel of a black semiautomatic pistol.

"Give me all your money or I'm gonna shoot you in 10 seconds," the robber told him, and he began to count backward from 10.

The robber kept counting as the clerk quickly retrieved the cash register key from his pocket, opened the drawer and handed over all the paper money. The robber shoved the money in his jacket pocket and then demanded to see under the drawer.

Seeing there was no more paper currency, the robber reached over and took a roll of quarters, dimes and pennies and then left.

A witness who had been sitting outside the motel about 40 feet from the entrance told officers she had seen a man leave the south doors and run away to the east along Blue Mound Road. She said she did not get a good look at the man because she had been checking the Internet on her phone.

One officer searching the area found a $5 bill in the parking lot and another found a discarded and inside-out black and gray hoodie sweatshirt a few blocks away. He reported that it was dry even though the weather was foggy and damp.

The motel's manager and its maintenance man were called in to review video surveillance footage with police, but the maintenance man, after trying to bring up the incident, said that they had recently been having trouble with the camera freezing up and that the incident was not recorded.