DENVER – Three people have been arrested nearly three weeks after committing an armed robbery in Loveland, according to a spokesperson with the police department.
The crime was reported on March 21 shortly before 1 a.m. to the Loveland Emergency Communications Center, which received a weapons complaint on E. 23rd St. near the intersection with N. Monroe Ave. in Loveland, just north of Silver Lake. The person who made that call reported to police that they thought they heard two gunshots in the area.
Responding officers found pieces of what appeared to be ammunition from a shot gun blast in the intersection, along with a vehicle fluid trail leaving the area, according to a news release. The trail was eventually determined to come from a Nissan Rogue that was parked at a nearby gas station. The vehicle had a front-end damage to the vehicle, including the windshield, consistent with bird shot ammunition, police said.
Two men were inside that Nissan Rogue and told police they were never in the area of the reported gunshots, but after more questioning from law enforcement, the men told the truth, adding they were there to “conclude a drug transaction,” the release stated.
The driver of the Nissan Rogue then told police the shooting happened after he went to meet someone he knew at Loveland Burial Park to get back $100 he was owed, but that when he got there, “an altercation began when one of the occupants of the suspect vehicle tried to rob him,” he told police. He added that as he tried to drive away, someone from the other vehicle leaned out the vehicle’s window and shot at their car with a shotgun.
The suspect vehicle the driver told police about was identified as a Chevy Equinox SU with a Texas license plate, which was found by law enforcement officers a few hours later, unoccupied and in the parking lot of a nearby apartment complex.
Detectives were able to develop probable cause to arrest Texas resident 23-year-old Anthony Mautino, which officers observed leaving an apartment in the Chevy later in the evening. He was contacted by police in the parking lot of a local business and was taken into custody without incident. A 16-year-old, who was a passenger in the vehicle, was detained, police said.
Upon interviewing the suspect, police learned that at the time of the shooting, the suspect vehicle was occupied by Mautino, the boy, and a friend identified as 20-year-old Camron Thibodeau, who was the driver of the vehicle at the time of the shooting.
“Mautino also alleged that before the shotgun was fired, one of the occupants in the victim vehicle had pulled a handgun,” the release stated.
Detectives found a BB gun in the victim’s vehicle at the time of the incident, but the occupants denied producing a gun.
Mautino and the 16-year-old boy were arrested on four counts, including aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon, illegal discharge of a firearm, special offender, and unlawful possession of controlled substance.
Thibodeau was arrested on April 4 on the same charges, minus illegal discharge of a firearm.
Both Mautino and Thibodeau were booked into the Larimer County Jail, with the former being held on a $100,000 cash-only bond, and the latter on a $50,000 cash/surety bond.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call Loveland Police Department Tip Line at 970-962-2032 or Larimer County Crime Stoppers at 970-221-6868.
