Gainesville Police found and arrested a man Wednesday morning who officers said was connected to a recent house robbery.
Amadino Rahim Ortiz, 21, was arrested after officers recognized him running from a car parked suspiciously.
Ortiz was connected to a robbery in the 600 block of Southwest Third Street, according to a police report. Just after 2 p.m., he and two masked gunmen robbed the home, taking several electronics, two guns and $300 cash.
On Saturday, officers arrested one of the men, 22-year-old Tykey Taran Mendez. The other two were not caught.
But on Wednesday at about 3 a.m., an officer spotted a gold Mitsubishi Galant traveling west on Southeast Fifth Avenue. The car stopped abruptly and turned into a parking space in front of an apartment complex, according to the report. When an officer found the car, it was empty. The officer then spotted Ortiz and Devante Lee Mitchem, 20, running away from a building.
The officer recognized Ortiz as one of the robbery suspects and asked him about the incident. Ortiz said he was involved in the robbery and was arrested on charges of loitering and home invasion with a firearm. As of press time, Ortiz is being held at the Alachua County Jail in lieu of a $525,000 bond.
There are no reports that Mitchem was involved in the robbery.
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 1/16/2015 under the headline “GPD makes second arrest in downtown robbery"]
