Pierce County Sheriff's Deputies responded to a call of a pizza driver robbed at gunpoint last week, but thanks to some pretty poor planning by the pizza-hungry perp, the robber was quickly arrested.
Deputies say they responded to a 911 call from the Pizza Hut delivery driver who said she'd been robbed at gunpoint around 7 p.m. on Friday.
The victim told the deputies that she had received a pizza delivery order from a 980 area code and that the customer identified himself as "David Adams." He provided an address in the 7300 block of Chambers Creek Rd. W. in University Place.
When the driver arrived at the address, she could not find the customer so she called him back. The man told her to meet him in front of one of the buildings at an apartment complex at the corner of Bridgeport Way W. and Chambers Creek Rd.
The delivery driver drove to the corner, got out of the car with the food and was approached by two men. One of the men displayed a handgun and pressed it against the victim's leg. The suspect ordered the driver to give him the food. The armed man took the bag and handed it to his accomplice, who took the food out of the bag and then they both ran off with pizza, cookies and bread. The driver left and called 911.
Deputies asked Pizza Hut to run the 980 phone number through their system to see if it had previously ordered any food through them and learned that the same number had placed an order 4 days earlier, and had it delivered to the same address. Deputies showed up to the apartment and knocked on the door. They heard voices and loud music coming from inside, and could smell marijuana, but when the deputies announced themselves, no one answered the door.
One of the deputies circled around the back of the building where he saw several men inside the apartment putting their shoes on and stepping out onto a third floor balcony. The deputy thought the men were going to climb down the balcony and ordered them to stop and put their hands up. The people in the apartment let the deputies in the apartment after that.
They talked to 5 men and two women inside the apartment and saw several Pizza Hut boxes as well as a half eaten pizza, cookies and bread. Deputies handcuffed everybody in the apartment and identified them all. One of the men gave the same name as the one on the 4-day-old pizza order, and deputies saw a loaded Glock .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun under the couch cushion where the man was seated.
The suspect told deputies that he made a stupid mistake and said that he called in an order to Pizza Hut and an unidentified other man had "robbed the pizza girl." The suspect said the gun under the cushion was the gun used in the robbery, and it was recently stolen while at a party.
He told the deputies he had "messed up his life over eight bucks in pizza." The victim had given deputies a receipt for the ripped-off order, totaling over $80.00.
Deputies also checked the 980 number the pizza was ordered on, and a cell phone in the apartment began to ring.
No one else in the apartment was arrested.
The 20-year-old robbery suspect was booked into the Pierce County Jail for 1st degree robbery and 1st degree assault.
(story: Matt Pusatory, KHQ Local News Web Producer; photo: Pierce County Sheriff's Office)