Suspects Tracked Down Minutes After Robbery, Assault

Two Novato men were arrested Thursday night as suspects in an assault and robbery that took place minutes earlier at the McDonald's restaurant in Novato's Hamilton area, police said Friday.

At 10:29 p.m., police got wind of a suspected robbery in the parking lot of the McDonald's at Hamilton Marketplace shopping center, acting Lt. Jennifer Welch said. Responding officers learned that two men approached another man and asked him if he wanted to by a music CD. When the 20-year-old man pulled out some money to pay for it, the suspects knocked him to the ground, took a small amount of cash and the man's car keys, then drove away in their own vehicle, Welch said.

About 27 minutes later, officers on Bolling Drive in Hamilton spotted a dark-colored Jeep Cherokee that was described as the getaway vehicle. The suspects were identified by the man who had been robbed and hit, and the two men were arrested without incident on Hutchins Way in the Bay Vista neighborhood.

The man who had been hit did not require medical attention, Welch said.

Joseph Tracey Jean, 18, and Reinaldo B. Martinez, 20, face felony robbery charges and their bails were set at $75,000.

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