Police shoot armed teen robbery suspect

Victim, one other man were taken into custody

“He ignored those commands to drop the gun and approached several residences.”

Phoenix police officers posing as customers in an attempt to apprehend a pair of reported robbers shot a 17-year-old suspect they say brandished a handgun after a short footchase Friday night.

Officers from the department’s neighborhood enforcement team learned that multiple armed robberies had occurred in a north Phoenix neighborhood after victims arranged person-to-person sales online.

Investigators arranged a meeting about 8 p.m. Friday and posed as customers in the area of 12th Street and Helena Drive. After finding the suspects and attempting to arrest them, two male suspects fled on foot, police said Saturday morning.

One suspect, a 19-year-old man, was taken into custody nearby.

But a 17-year-old accomplice kept running and appeared to be armed with a handgun, police said.

“He ignored those commands to drop the gun and approached several residences,” police wrote Saturday morning in a news release.

An officer shot and wounded the suspect, who was treated and transported to an area hospital and later released into police custody. In addition to that suspect’s handgun, another handgun was found along the path where the two had fled, police said.

Neither the suspects nor the officer has been identified.

Follow public-safety reporter Jason Pohl on Twitter: @pohl_jason.