UC Berkeley campus police have arrested three people — including a 14-year-old boy — after an armed robbery, assault and carjacking on Grizzly Peak Boulevard on Monday night.
One of the suspects shot a gun into the air “to gain quick compliance” during the robbery, which took place at about 10:30 p.m. on Grizzly Peak north of Signpost 14, according to a prepared statement released Wednesday by the University of California Police Department.
According to UCPD, one person held the gun while three others “assaulted the victims and robbed them of their cell phones and keys to their vehicle.”
The robbery involved three victims, police said. One sustained minor injuries during the assault. None of the victims were UC Berkeley students.
The robbers left the scene in two vehicles: the one they took during the carjacking and the one they had arrived in.
UCPD used the victim’s phone to track the assailants into Oakland. Campus police then worked with the Oakland Police Department, which arrested one person in that city.
UCPD conducted further investigation in Oakland, which led to two more arrests, police said. The victims identified all three arrestees as the people from the carjacking, according to police.
One additional suspect has yet to be arrested, said Sgt. Nicolas Hernandez, UCPD spokesman.
According to online booking records, police arrested Emerson Diaz, 19, of Oakland early Tuesday morning.
Hernandez said police also arrested a 14-year-old boy from Oakland and a 17-year-old boy from Berkeley. No further information was available about those arrests due to privacy laws that protect minors.
Diaz was arrested on suspicion of carjacking, shooting the gun into the air and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, according to jail records. He is being held on $255,000 bail at Santa Rita Jail.
Hernandez said carjacking cases are infrequent in UCPD’s jurisdiction.
During his 14 years with the agency, he said, “I can only think of a few.”
[This story was updated after publication to remove the name of one arrestee listed as an adult in jail records who turned out to be a minor, according to authorities.]
