A teenager and a young adult were arrested Saturday and charged with stealing a vehicle at gunpoint, according to the V.I. Police Department.
According to the police, the 911 dispatch center received a call at 5:02 p.m. reporting that a couple had been sitting in a car eating in the vicinity of the St. Croix Educational Complex when two black males, one of them carrying what appeared to be a machine gun, approached them, ordered them out of the vehicle and demanded that they hand over their mobile phones and the keys for the vehicle.
The suspects then drove off in the vehicle.
Police issued an all points bulletin on the vehicle and officers spotted it on the Melvin H. Evans Highway in the area of Williams Delight. They began to follow the suspects.
Officers followed the vehicle into the Cane Carlton area, where the suspects disabled the vehicle in a ditch and fled on foot towards the beach.
Found the suspects on the beach and apprehended both.
The victims in this case were not injured and the vehicle was recovered.
The suspects were identified as a sixteen-year-old minor, whose name was withheld because of his age, and James Cruz, 20, a resident of Harbor View Apartments. Both were remanded and turned over to the Bureau of Corrections.
The case is being investigated by members of the Criminal Investigation Bureau in conjunction with the Youth Investigation Bureau.
