MIAMI – Miami police arrested two suspects Monday wanted in an armed robbery in the city’s Wynwood neighborhood over the weekend.
Victor Yariel Polanco, 23, of Norwalk, Connecticut, and Yeuris Baez, 28, of Paterson, New Jersey, are accused of targeting two victims for their Rolex watches.
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Police said the victims, two men, and a witness, a woman, were sitting in a vehicle with their windows down in the 300 block of Northwest 23rd Street just before 4 a.m. Sunday when the pair approached the car, pointed a gun at them and demanded the watches.
An arrest report states that one of the men was pistol-whipped more than 10 times, causing a laceration and bruising.
Police said the other victim noticed the duo “walking suspiciously towards them; therefore, he removed his watch and threw it under the seat.”
The report states that Polanco and Baez repeatedly demanded that the victim hand over his watch, threatening to shoot both victims.
“He stated that one of the offenders put him in a headlock and pistol-whipped him continuously for approximately (two) minutes, causing him to lose consciousness,” police wrote. “He believes that the offenders fled after finding his watch but does not remember due to being unconscious.”
Police said Baez checked the woman’s purse but did not take anything. She would tell police that one of the men had a Dominican accent; Baez is identified in his arrest report as a Dominican national.
The arrest report states that surveillance video shows Polanco and Baez speaking to an unidentified pair in a black BMW, which had been been seen just before 3 a.m. parked in the street with a “clear view of the victim’s vehicle.”
Polanco and Baez had crossed paths with the victims at around 3:20 a.m., kept walking past them, then went to talk to the driver and passenger in the BMW, police said surveillance video showed.
After speaking with them, Polanco and Baez got into a Range Rover with New York license plates, the report states. Authorities said Polanco used the SUV to block the street to keep other drivers away during the robbery.
Authorities said after the crime, Baez left in the BMW.
Police said they located the Range Rover — along with the suspects — along Collins Avenue near 189th Street in Sunny Isles Beach Monday.
A search “revealed two Rolex watches identical to the ones stolen in the robbery in the front passenger door,” police said in the report.
One of the watches’ serial numbers matched one of the stolen ones, the report states.
Baez, police said, said the watches “belonged to him and his wife, but denied any involvement in the robbery.”
Polanco and Baez, who scowled in his Miami-Dade booking photo, are facing felony charges of armed burglary with assault or battery, armed burglary and armed robbery.
They are being held without bond in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Tuesday.