A robbery at a Buckhead fast-food restaurant set off a police chase overnight that netted two suspects linked to several other Atlanta robberies, police said.
It started when someone pulled a gun in the drive-thru of the Piedmont Road Krystal and ended with two men getting arrested on the Downtown Connector, authorities said.
The suspects, identified as 20-year-old Jeremiah Fontaine and 21-year-old Johnathan Schell, are believed to be responsible for four previous armed robberies across the city, police Capt. William Ricker told Channel 2 Action News. Police had been on the lookout for their vehicle, a Ford Mustang, since Sunday.
The same vehicle was allegedly used to hold up Krystal employees Thursday night.
“A Ford Mustang pulled up to the drive-thru and pointed a firearm at them, and the driver in turn reached inside and grabbed the cash drawer,” Ricker told the news station at the scene.
The Mustang took off, but officers spotted the car later on the Downtown Connector. They pursued it to the 10th Street exit, where a Georgia State Patrol trooper positioned his cruiser to end the chase, commonly known as a PIT maneuver.
One of the men bailed out of the car and tried to make a run for it across the interstate, police said. The other remained inside the car and was arrested.
Inside the vehicle, officers recovered masks, two handguns and three cash drawers, police said, presumably from previous heists.
The suspects and their Mustang were linked to the June 9 robberies of a Checkers on Moreland Avenue and a Burger King on Northside Drive, as well as the June 11 robberies of a McDonald’s on Roswell Road and a Chevron on Moreland, police said.
One of the handguns recovered from the car had been reported stolen, authorities said.
Fontaine and Schell are charged with armed robbery, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, police said.
