Boys Arrested in Armed Robbery Had Been in Trouble Before

Two boys arrested last week on suspicion of the armed robbery of another Tosa boy had been in trouble before, and not long before, according to police reports.

At 4:06 p.m. Sept. 10, two Wauwatosa boys, one 14 and the other 15, were arrested for armed robbery after they allegedly held up a 16-year-old and stole his money.

Both had been arrested just a month earlier for a lesser crime of theft.

According to police reports:

The victim said he walking from East High School to meet his mother on her way to pick him up when he noticed two boys walking toward him but on the other side of of the street near the corner of North 74th Street and Melrose Avenue.

He continued to walk north on 74th, and saw that the two had turned around and were walking parallel to him. One of the boys then crossed to his side of the street and he became nervous.

When he reached North Lloyd Street, the two caught up to him and one tapped him on the arm and asked, “Do I know you?” He said he didn’t know him and tried to walk away, but the boy grabbed and pushed some hard object against the back of his neck, which he thought might be a gun, then demanded his money.

The victim turned over a $10 bill and several $1 bills, and the two ran away. The victim began walking toward home again but soon saw a resident out gardening and told her he had just been robbed. The woman told him he should call police, which he did.

The responding officer was the school resource officer at East High, and he immediately recognized the two suspects from their descriptions, actions and recent history of behavior. He radioed other units and the two boys were spotted at Roosevelt Elementary School.

One of the boys had a $5 bill and two $1 bills stuffed into his underwear, as well as having a knife in his school backpack. The other boy had no money on him, but officers spoke to another juvenile on the playground who turned out to be his brother, and he admitted that his brother had just given him $7 to hold for him.

The cashier at Candyman, 7259 W. North Ave., told police that the two had come in and changed a $10 bill for two 5’s.

The two suspects had been arrested just a month before for stealing bicycles from racks at East High, where they go to school, and had also been questioned after they were seen in residential yards peering into windows.

The two denied any involvement and refused to give police any other statements, but as they were being taken to juvenile detention, the officer driving them heard them whispering.

Video and audio recordings from the back seat of the squad car caught the two incriminating themselves, with one boy saying that he had pressed a cell phone, not a gun, to the victim's head.