Gunmen escape during car crash
Pretoria - Two of three armed men who had robbed a cellphone shop in the Pretoria city centre escaped from a car crash while attempting to evade police on Wednesday morning.
"About 09:00 this morning (Wednesday) three armed men robbed the Q and A cellular phone shop on the corner of Vermeulen and Andries streets in the CBD. One of the men saw a metro police officer outside the shop writing tickets and fired at him," said police spokesperson Inspector Paul Ramaloko.
The metro officer took cover and called for back-up, after which police and security guards in the vicinity gave chase and caught the man.
A cellphone, an undisclosed amount of cash and a pistol with the serial number filed off were confiscated.
"The two men left in the store ran out when they saw the police intervention outside. They jumped into the Toyota Venture of a military sergeant who happened to have stopped at the corner of Vermeulen and Andries," Ramaloko said.
The men instructed the sergeant at gunpoint to drive away from the scene.
"At the corner of Vermeulen and Van der Walt the robot was red for the Venture but the two gunmen told the sergeant to drive through.
"The sergeant did so and the car was hit by a vehicle and it overturned with the three in it."
The two armed men emerged from the wreck and ran away.
Ramaloko said the sergeant escaped with minor injuries but was in a state of shock when police spoke to him.
The metro police officer also escaped with minor injuries he sustained while taking cover and was taken to a local hospital.
The two remaining armed men are still at large.
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