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TAMPA — With the help of two employees, two men robbed a Tampa restaurant at gunpoint early Monday and fled with the money, police said.
The men were let into Charley's Steak House on Cypress Street by a dishwasher, said Carl Parker, the restaurant's general manager. One had an assault rifle, he said. The other had a knife and a wrench. The restaurant was closed.
"They told me to get on the ground and I just did what I was told," said Aurelio Carillo, 30, another dishwasher at the restaurant.
The robbers used plastic zip ties to restrain a manager and an employee while demanding money from the safe.
They took an undisclosed amount and hit the manager in the back of the head with the butt of the gun when she didn't move fast enough, Parker said.
An employee in the dining room called police, who arrived in time to see the men flee the restaurant and jump over a fence next to a Sheraton hotel, police said. Two men ran north to Cypress Street before they hopped into a silver Lexus SUV driven by another employee, Rogelio Torres, Parker said.
Police pursued the SUV onto the southbound lanes of the Howard Frankland Bridge. They eventually boxed in the vehicle in the emergency lane on the Tampa side of the bridge.
One of the men jumped into the bay and was rescued after officers threw a floating cushion and rope in the water. He was then arrested.
The other two were arrested on the bridge.
Kyle A. Larson, 20, Osvaldo Yasel Martinez, 26, and Torres, 26, are charged with armed robbery and false imprisonment. Torres is a fry cook at Charley's.
Police arrested dishwasher Edgar Colon, 21, who the manager said let the robbers into the restaurant. He was charged with the same crimes.
Police divers were called in to retrieve evidence, including a bag of money taken from the restaurant, police said.
Records show that three of the men have previously been arrested on multiple charges.
Larson was arrested on burglary and grand theft charges in two separate incidents in 2008. Torres was charged with burglary and grand theft in 2007, records show.
Martinez is a registered sex offender given a five-year sentence in 2006 for lewd and lascivious sexual battery on a victim younger than 15. His arrest record also includes several charges of domestic battery.
Police said they are investigating whether the suspects were involved in other crimes in the area. It's unclear who owns the SUV.
At the restaurant Monday, Parker said both Colon and Torres had been good employees and news of their involvement was a shock.
"We thank God that no one was hurt and today we are back to business as usual," he said.
Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report.
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