Cobb County Police have arrested two suspects in a string of armed robberies, including at a Burger King on Friday.
Rodney B. Lofton of Marietta and Deontae Conway of Dallas were arrested just before 11 p.m. Friday after county police were called to assist city of Smyrna police in responding to an armed robbery at a Captain D’s on South Cobb Drive, during which shots were fired.
County police ran a tag on a silver Chevrolet Suburban that Lofton, 21, and Conway, 18, were riding in. After the vehicle came back stolen, officers attempted to stop the suspects but they fled in the 2005 Suburban, which later crashed. Lofton and Conway tried to flee on foot but were captured.
Metro Atlanta has been hit with a rash of recent restaurant armed robberies, several on Friday alone. A bandit struck the Waffle House at U.S. 78 and Rockbridge Road in Gwinnett County on Friday, the 18th time in two weeks that a Waffle House was robbed at gunpoint.
In a possible break in the Waffle House robberies, police in Calera, Ala., south of Birmingham said two suspects were arrested after robbing a Waffle House in that town and they are suspected in the robberies in metro Atlanta. Edwin Mitchell, 21, and DeAngelo Heard, 19, both from Ellenwood, Ga., were being held in the Shelby County Jail.
In addition, more than 20 robberies have occurred at Burger Kings, Taco Bells and KFC restaurants since April.
Cobb police told the AJC on Friday that a man carrying a shotgun and wearing a bandana to conceal his face held up the Burger King at Dallas Highway and Barrett Parkway in Marietta around 1 a.m. It was the second robbery of a Burger King during the week. Earlier a man attempting to rob one on Peachtree Road in Buckhead was fatally shot by an Atlanta police officer.
In the Dallas Highway incident, the robber, whom employees only described as "young," forced an employee to let him into the restaurant. Once inside, the man demanded and received an undisclosed amount of money, the man fled the scene, according to police.
Police now believe Lofton or Conway were involved in the Dallas Highway Burger King robbery. They are also suspects in the robbery of a Zaxby’s restaurant on Floyd Road in Mabelton earlier in the week.
On Tuesday, Cobb police said, a Zaxby's employee who answered a knock on the rear door of the restaurant around 9 a.m. was confronted by a shotgun-wielding man whose face was covered with a black T-shirt, police said. The man entered the business, demanded and received an undisclosed about of cash, and fled on foot.
Lofton and Conway are charged with multiple counts of armed robbery, aggravated assault and burglary and were being held Saturday without bond the Cobb County Adult Detention Center.
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