Masked men robbed bowling alley at gunpoint — with the guard’s help, Calif. cops say
An armed robbery at a Northern California bowling alley in May was easier to carry out than it should have been — because the security guard was in on it, according to police.
U.S. marshals helped arrest the guard, 43-year-old Gary Dillahunty, at his Vacaville home on Tuesday, Concord police said in a news release on Wednesday.
The robbery took place May 12 at a bowling alley and arcade called Round 1 at Concord’s Sunvalley Shopping Center. Two masked men made two alley workers go into a locked cash room at gunpoint, then zip-tied the workers’ hands, stole money and fled, police said.
By the time a worker freed herself and called for police to respond, the robbers were gone, according to police.
“This was certainly a very scary situation for the employees on duty,” Concord police Lt. Mike Kindorf told NBC Bay Area in May. “They were in quite a bit of danger.”
Police said they figured out that the robbers got into the alley “through a normally secured employee entrance.” The robbery happened around midnight and followed a pair of violent brawls that broke out weeks earlier at the alley and in a nearby parking lot, KRON4 reported in May. No one involved in the May 12 armed robbery was hurt, and the alley had already closed, according to NBC.
The investigation went on for two months, and revealed that the guard working the night of the robbery had actually orchestrated it, police said. An outside security contractor employed Dillahunty while he was working as a guard at the Round 1, according to authorities.
Police said the robbery details are “being shared with the California Bureau of Security and Investigative Services, a regulator of the private security industry.”
Another suspected robber, Vincent Timmons, a 37-year-old man on parole for kidnapping, was also identified. When Timmons’ San Francisco home was searched last week, authorities discovered clues tying him to the May 12 robbery as well as “an illegal assault weapon, a hand gun, and a large quantity of cocaine,” police said.
Timmons was also arrested, police said.
The Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office charged both men with felony robbery, kidnapping and conspiracy, and they’re being held in the county jail. Dillahunty is also charged with a parole violation, police said.
Authorities said they’re still investigating the second masked suspect.
This story was originally published July 24, 2019 at 6:48 PM with the headline "Masked men robbed bowling alley at gunpoint — with the guard’s help, Calif. cops say."
