Law Enforcement Arrest Suspect Inside El Paso Restaurant

This story sounds straight out of a movie. Men rush into a local restaurant with guns drawn and take down a suspected criminal.

This actually happened Monday night at a west El Paso Taco Cabana restaurant. ABC-7 reporter Celina Avila spoke to a customer who witnessed it all happen.

“He was wearing full protective body gear with a helmet and everything, he had a machine gun and all I remember thinking was what was this guy doing,” said David Gutierrez.

He says his late night dinner came with an extra order of drama, “The gentleman with the full body gear is opening the door really slightly and gently and he’s crouching, as soon as that happened four gentlemen from the front door and the porch door came inside yelling and screaming to put their hands up.”

“They’re used to seeing these sorts of things on televison and when they see it in real life, I can understand how that would be alarming, ” said U.S. Marshal Robert Almonte .

He says ten deputies with his fugitive task force were in on the operation, “Typically when you’re dealing with people who are involved with smuggling large amounts of drugs then you’re talking about people dealing with the Mexican cartels.”

Almonte says deputies made sure the suspect’s guard was down when they made the grab.

“He was just eating there with his family…you could see the laser on the supect’s back,” said Gutierrez.

“These are split second decisions that have to be made and of course these decisions are made with the interest of the public safety,” said Almonte.

“But maybe not like in a populated area, they should maybe think of that before risking someone else’s life for the sake of one person,” said Gutierrez.

Almonte says the highly trained deputies know not to take any chances.

“It’s definitely going to make me suspicious,” admitted Gutierrez.

Because you never know who you may be sitting next to.