Bystanders forcibly detained two teenagers at a Carlsbad cafe until police arrived and arrested them on suspicion of brandishing an air gun, stealing a tip jar and assaulting a woman, police said Friday.
Giovanni Matteo Filippone Ojeda, 19, of San Diego and an unnamed juvenile were arrested on suspicion of robbery, assault, conspiracy, and weapon and drug violations, Carlsbad Lt. Jeffrey Smith said. Ojeda was booked into the Vista Detention Center, where he was being held in lieu of $100,000 bond, while the boy was booked into San Diego Juvenile Hall.
Carlsbad police were dispatched around 7 p.m. Thursday to the Vinaka Cafe on Carlsbad Village Drive in response to a report of a person with a weapon who attempted to steal from the establishment, Lt. Jeffrey Smith said. When officers arrived, they found several bystanders holding down the “combative male subjects.”
Police arrested the pair and later learned they’d entered the cafe and stole a tip jar from the counter, Smith said. When employees confronted them about the theft, one pulled out what appeared to be a firearm, though it was later determined to be an airsoft gun.
After arguing with the employees, the men went outside and Ojeda assaulted a woman, Smith said.
“He struck her in the face, damaged her cellular phone and brandished the airsoft gun towards her,” Smith said. “Bystanders who had witnessed the series of events intervened and forcibly detained the two suspects.”
A tentative arraignment is set for Ojeda on Monday on four felony charges and four misdemeanor counts, jail records show.
Carlsbad police said an investigation of the incident was underway Friday morning.
—City News Service