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LASD arrests Rowland Heights robbery suspect, seeks accomplice
San Gabriel Valley Aug 15, 2022
| Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
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A man was in custody Monday in the armed robbery of two people outside a 99 Ranch Market in Rowland Heights in July, and an accomplice was being sought, authorities said.
Demoryie Watts, 21, was arrested on Friday and booked on suspicion of felony armed robbery, according to Alba Ibarra of the Sheriff’s Information Bureau. He was being held on $150,000 bail, Ibarra said.
Watts was on parole for a carjacking conviction at the time of his arrest on Friday, and is a possible suspect in other similar crimes, Ibarra said. No description was released of the second suspect.
Personnel from the sheriff’s department’s Major Crimes Bureau served warrants in Los Angeles and Lancaster early Friday morning and arrested Watts at a residence in the 45000 block of Spearman Avenue in Lancaster, according to the sheriff’s department.
The crime occurred on July 9 in the parking lot of the market, as a man and woman were loading items into their car after shopping. The suspects, both of them armed, attacked the pair and took the man’s Rolex watch, the sheriff’s department reported.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the Rolex was valued at $60,000.
The crime occurred in a prosperous, majority-Asian section of the east San Gabriel Valley, and a video of the attack and its aftermath quickly spread through the local Asian community, the Times reported.
Shortly after the Rowland Heights robbery, sheriff’s Capt. Steven Tousey told the Times that the victims — a man in his 60s and a woman in her 50s — suffered minor injuries and did not go to the hospital.
The sheriff’s department noted both victims in the attack are Asian, but reported investigators found “no evidence to indicate the subjects were motivated by hate.”
Updated Aug. 15, 2022, 9:41 p.m.
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