An armed robbery of a restaurant turned into a deadly police chase in Eilat
early on Sunday, resulting in the shooting death of one suspect.
The
incident began when two masked gunmen, brothers aged 26 and 21, entered the Caza
De Brazil restaurant in the Red Sea city, waving firearms and demanding cash
from employees.
One of the suspects pistol-whipped the restaurant
manager.
The manager fled to the restaurant’s rooftop, where he called
police.
Two policemen arrived within minutes of the robbery, but the
gunmen forced them to hand over their weapons at gunpoint.
The suspects
then fled the scene, firing in the air and beating two employees on their way
out.
They forced a taxi containing its driver and a female passenger – a
Ukrainian tourist – to pull over, and drove off in the stolen vehicle with the
two terrified civilians still inside.
Eilat police launched a high-speed
pursuit of the suspects. Seeing the patrol cars behind them, one suspect fired
rounds out of his window at police. Officers returned fire, aiming at the taxi’s
wheels. That forced the stolen car to come to a stop at Shahamon
Square.
At that point, police said, the 26-year-old suspect opened fire
on police again, who responded this time with deadly force, shooting back at the
suspect. He was hit and critically injured.
Paramedics rushed the suspect
to the Joseftal Hospital in Eilat, but he died of his injuries soon
afterward.
The second suspect is under arrest.
“Both civilians who
were in the taxi are safe,” a police spokesman said.
Following the
incident, police flooded the scene and began collecting
evidence.
Southern police district chief Cmdr. Yossi Prienti traveled to
Eilat in the middle of the night to be on the scene.
Public Security
Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, who received updates on the pursuit during the
early morning, praised the police’s actions.
While calling for a full
investigation of what occurred, he said it was apparent that “the police’s
determination to engage the suspects resulted in the end of the incident, and
prevented harm coming to innocent civilians.”
The brothers came from the
Haifa area, and both have criminal records involving property offenses, police
spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
“We are investigating not just the
incident itself, where police were in the line of fire, but also how the
suspects were able to take firearms from the two policemen who responded first,”
Rosenfeld added.