Armed Citizen Confronts Robbery Suspects

From the Alaska Dispatch News:

A 20-year-old man was arrested early Wednesday after an armed citizen confronted two suspects who Anchorage police say robbed a nearby gas station and pepper-sprayed employees and a customer.

According to a release from the Anchorage Police Department, Brion M. Brown and another man had entered a Tesoro station on Boniface Parkway in East Anchorage around midnight Tuesday, and one demanded money from the clerk while wielding pepper spray and a knife. Both men were wearing masks, police said.

After one clerk complied with the men's demands, the suspects pepper-sprayed two employees as well as a customer, police said.

The men ran out of the Tesoro and into a yard across Boniface from the gas station, according to the statement. Police wouldn't say if the men left with money, but police spokeswoman Renee Oistad said "some merchandise may have been removed" from the store.

"The owner of the property exited his home, was armed, and confronted the two," police wrote. One of the suspects ran from the scene, but the other, who police identified as Brown, was arrested when police arrived.