Police say 24-year-old Julio Carrero and 19-year-old Miguel Pizzaro robbed two 16-year-old girls at gunpoint early Monday morning in Springfield's Forest Park neighborhood.
SPRINGFIELD -- Police nabbed a pair of Springfield men for the alleged gunpoint robbery of a pair of teenage girls around midnight Monday in the city's Forest Park neighborhood.
Springfield Police Capt. Cheryl C. Clapprood said the incident occurred on Ruskin Street, off Eleanor Road, where the 16-year-old girls claimed one of two men produced a gun and ordered them to give up their purses and other valuables.
After searching the neighborhood, officers cornered the alleged robbers near Kenwood Park, off Dickinson Street, around 1:15 a.m. Monday. As a result, Julio Carrero, 24, of 69 Kenwood Park and Miguel Pizzaro, 19, of 47 Longview St. were each charged with single counts of armed robbery, police said.
The teenage girls told police they were walking from White Street toward Ruskin Street around midnight on Monday when Carrero and Pizzaro approached them on BMX bicycles. One of the men showed the girls a gun that was tucked into his waistband and demanded their purses, cell phones and money, according to Sgt. John M. Delaney, aide to Springfield Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet.
The suspects fled and the girls called police, who drove them around the immediate area to see if they could identify the alleged thieves. Within minutes, Delaney said, the suspects were spotted near Kenwood Park and taken into custody.
Delaney said police recovered the items that were allegedly stolen from the girls.
Arraignment information for Carrero and Pizzaro was not immediately available.
THE MAP BELOW shows the approximate location where a pair of teenage girls were allegedly robbed at gunpoint by two Springfield men early Monday morning: