Police Have Five Suspects in Robbery Cases; Individual With Stolen Cell Phone Questioned

Edgewood Police Chief Robert Payne announced Tuesday night that local police are investigating five suspects in conjunction with a string of recent robberies that have plagued the Regent Square neighborhood.

Payne updated Edgewood Council at its regular meeting Tuesday night. He said crossing into neighboring police jurisdictions in Wilkinsburg, Swissvale and the City of Pittsburgh.

Those suspects have only been identified internally and are not in custody, he said.

After contacting police officials in each of those areas and working on descriptions from recent reports, Payne said they were able to assess that the robberies are connected.

“We want to catch these guys and catch them as quickly as we can,” Payne said. “We’ve taken a lot of steps that cannot be talked about publicly to try and not just curb their activities, but to arrest these people. That, of course, has paid off in the long run and we have been able to identify an individual who had a cell phone that belonged to a victim in the City of Pittsburgh.”

The individual who was found with that stolen cell phone has given the police information on suspects who may be involved with the cases in Regent Square, Payne said.

“Those suspects have been identified and we have at least five of them we are looking at currently,” Payne said. “The second break was another cell phone that was found from a . Those are breaks in the case that give us the ability to focus on those suspects we thought were involved to begin with.”

In Edgewood, one robbery and one attempted robbery has taken place, he said.

involving a couple around 9:30 p.m. The male victim was pistol-whipped and bleeding from the back of his head when crews responded, according to

Four people at a pet store called Animal Nature were robbed at the corner of Forbes and Braddock avenues Friday afternoon, according to Pittsburgh police.

Payne stressed that all police in each area affected are working together and are now planning ways to improve collaboration in the future.

“We are working closely to the point that we are working together on a daily basis and sometimes hourly,” Payne said. “I suspect that we are going to see some arrests coming out of this situation very soon.”

He also noted that residents on Hutchinson are now planning to form a Block Watch to keep each other aware and informed of what is going on in the neighborhood at all times.

“No matter who you are or where you are at you can become a victim very quickly and we have been working to get information out as fast as possible,” Payne said.

Borough President Pat Schaefer said the spirit of working across jurisdictional lines is something all residents need to embrace – not just police.

“This is happening to all of us,” she said. “We intend to take back our sidewalks and our streets together.”

Payne said residents should not hesitate to call 911 if they see anything suspicious in the area.