MAGNA, Utah -- Three officers who happened to be in the right place at the right time nabbed an alleged robber in Magna on Friday.
They were driving down 8400 West when they noticed a man with a ski mask running down the street, carrying a cash register in one hand and a gun in the other.
“We were actually coming back from lunch,” said Officer Lance Bess of the Unified Police Department.
Officer Bess and a colleague were headed back to their station when the day took a slightly unexpected turn.
“I happened to see this guy just running down the sidewalk,” Bess said. “I happen to see he’s carrying something, and I point him out to Det. Ball and say, ‘Hey, that guy looks like he just robbed a place.’”
Riding alongside him, Det. Joe Ball said he thought Bess was kidding, at first.
“It made me look and give it a second thought, too,” Ball said.
The guy they were looking at was the same one who they believe was caught on camera at the nearby Chevron station, minutes earlier. Surveillance video shows a man, his face concealed by a mask, pointing a gun at a cashier before running off with some cash and part of the register.
Unfortunately for him, though, he ran right into police.
“As we approached him closer and closer, I mean, we’re almost right up to him,” Bess said. “At that point, we can definitely see that he’s holding some sort of till in his hand with change in it and sure enough, we’re like, he definitely did, he just robbed the place.”
With the help of another officer behind them, they cornered Scott Trumble, 33, on the sidewalk.
“I mean, that looks just like a scene right out of the movies, you know, that this guy just happens to be running down the road, you know, mask still on and holding cash,” Bess said.
They arrested him before a call for help had even been sent out yet. Trumble is now facing charges for aggravated robbery.
