Three teens were arrested April 6 on charges stemming from an armed home invasion.
Bradenton Beach police allege the trio of 16-year-olds — two from Bradenton and one from Palmetto — allegedly broke into a home on 12th Street South. One pointed a gun at a 14-year-old occupant and threatened to shoot her if she alerted anyone in the home.
The occupant, visiting with family from Michigan, was not injured. She told police she woke and went downstairs to the kitchen for a glass of water and saw someone standing in the room. The person pointed a gun at her, threatened to kill her if she said anything and motioned two other people to run, according to a police report.
At the time of the invasion, police were in the area, searching for the occupants of a vehicle found parked nearby.
When a 911 call reporting the home invasion came in, BBPD police called for a K-9 unit from Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office and a helicopter unit from Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office to join a search. Officers and deputies from the Holmes Beach Police Department and the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office were already in the area, assisting with the search for the vehicle occupants.
Meanwhile, an MCSO violent crimes task force investigating a burglary in Bradenton notified investigators the suspects might be connected to their case, as the suspicious vehicle was connected to the earlier crime, Bradenton Beach Detective Sgt. Lenard Diaz said April 8.
While the various law enforcement units attempted to track the home invasion suspects, one unit observed three males running across the Cortez Bridge toward Cortez.
Simultaneously, the task force pinged a cellphone of one suspect, identified by tracing the vehicle used in the earlier burglary to its owners — the suspect’s parents, Diaz said.
The three suspects were arrested as they attempted to get into a ride-share vehicle.
The victim was accompanied by her father to a location where she identified the suspect who pointed a gun and threatened her.
Throughout the ordeal, the victim impressed officers as she remained calm and collected, Diaz said.
After Bradenton Beach police arrested the three teens, they were turned over to MCSO to face charges for the earlier burglary.
Because the three people arrested are teenagers, their names are being withheld. In Florida, juveniles charged with a felony, as the teens are, could be tried as adults.