Willow Road market robbery: Suspects remain at large Willow Road market robbery: Suspects remain at large (April 06, 2005)

Menlo Park police are no further along in tracking down the armed robbers who walked out with the cash on hand from the Mi Rancho Supermarket at 812 Willow Road on Friday, March 25.

The robbery is one in a series of similar incidents in markets where checks are cashed, said Detective Sgt. Matt Bacon of the Menlo Park Police Department.

"We are actively investigating," Sgt. Bacon said. "It's hard to say if it's the exact same people."

Menlo Park is working with police agencies in other Peninsula communities and across the Bay.

Surveillance videos have not been that helpful.

"Most of these guys are pretty good, frankly, in covering themselves up," Sgt. Bacon noted, adding that he has seen film in which it's impossible to determine a suspect's race.

In this robbery, the suspects had covered their faces with masks or bandannas. Police described them as black and between 20 and 30 years old. No one was injured during the robbery.

The robbers tend to pick times when the stores will be cashing checks, Sgt. Bacon said. This robbery happened around 9 p.m.

When the robbers leave, customers are usually too frightened to follow them and once outside, they can remove their masks and behave normally on the way out of the neighborhood, perhaps via a car parked around the corner, Sgt. Bacon said.

Some of the markets have alarms, but it usually takes a couple of minutes for police to arrive and by that time, with many escape routes to choose from, the suspects can be quite hard to find, Sgt. Bacon said.

Police are requesting anyone with information on this robbery to call Officer Brach Schuler or Detective Bill Massey at 330-6300.

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