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Bellevue police arrest suspects in spree of necklace robberies

Bellevue police arrested three people for investigation of robbery in connection with a string of necklace robberies. Investigators say the suspects grabbed necklaces on the victims and ripped them.  The crimes happened in the middle of the afternoon in busy retail parking lots.

Police responded to three separate robbery reports on Aug. 9, the latest in a series of robberies that started last year. In May, one of those robberies was caught on a Bellevue traffic camera.

Bellevue Police said with three robberies in one afternoon last week,  they had to put all of their resources toward catching the brazen robbers. Bellevue Police  put their Special Enforcement Team and SWAT team on the investigation and arrests.

On Thursday police got a clue they've needed to help track down the suspects,  detectives found surveillance cameras they say show the suspects loading into a getaway car.

Police were able to identify the vehicle and say it helped them track down the suspects. 
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"There's video of these guys running back and jumping into this car and so we were able to track that to a location and a specific person and through that determines who was associated with her, " said Major John McCracken, Bellevue Police Department.

Police say one suspect was arrested Saturday, the other two were taken into custody with help of the swat team today.

According to investigators one suspect is a 22 year-old woman from Federal Way, an 18 year-old man  from Bellevue, and a 16 year-old boy from Covington.

KIRO-7 asked if the suspects arrested in the string of robberies that occurred on Thursday, are connected to the other necklace robberies in Bellevue.

"I think we're going to find there's a connection between several people that are doing these. In this particular case, we're satisfied with the fact that we have the people involved in these specific robberies from last Thursday," said Major John McCracken.

Bellevue police detectives say they tracked the necklace robbery suspects to a Cash for Gold shop in Federal Way. Investigators recovered all three necklaces stolen last Thursday in Bellevue.

Reporter Alison Grande went to court Tuesday afternoon and is going through the court documents that reveal how detectives identified the suspects.

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