The suspect, 21-year-old Nico Bentancourt, is accused of carrying out a string of armed robberies on Thursday.<\/p>\n
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas \u2014 Surveillance video given exclusively to KHOU 11 shows an alleged armed robbery taking place early Thursday morning at the Denny\u2019s near Crosby Freeway and Sheldon Road.<\/p>\n
In the video, a person wearing a mask can be seen waving what appears to be a handgun and pointing it at an employee. That employee, Juan Carlos Arzate, spoke exclusively to KHOU 11 about the terrifying encounter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just happened so fast,\u201d Arzate said. \u201cI see a guest with a mask come in. He says give me all the money. At first, I\u2019m thinking it\u2019s a joke. I look down. I see him reach out from his hip, pulls out the gun, and that\u2019s when I know it\u2019s not a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arzate said he screamed that a robbery was taking place so that his manager and the couple of customers inside at the time could get out.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt that point, everybody runs out. I\u2019m the last one that\u2019s left right there. Next thing you know, he\u2019s looking over the counter. He sees I\u2019m the only one there. Has me at gunpoint, tells me to hurry up, empty out the register and give him everything,\u201d Arzate said. \u201cMy focus was just giving him the money so he can get out of there as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Harris County Sheriff\u2019s Office said the suspect, identified as 21-year-old Nico Bentancourt, got away with between $170 and $200 in cash.<\/p>\n
Roughly nine hours later, Bentancourt allegedly robbed a Boost Mobile store on Sheldon Road. Investigators accused Bentancourt of taking $250 at gunpoint.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s video footage from a Boost Mobile store at 10:07 a.m. that shows the defendant pointing a firearm at the employee demanding the money in the cash register,\u201d a judge said Friday during Bentancourt\u2019s hearing in probable cause court. \u201cThen he pointed the firearm at a customer, made him get on his knees. The defendant took his phone and his wallet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later that evening, deputies said Bentancourt attempted to rob a 7-Eleven, also on Sheldon Road, but the robbery was unsuccessful. Detectives located a suspect vehicle, conducted a traffic stop and arrested Bentancourt. The sheriff\u2019s office said they recovered a handgun, along with credit and debit cards belonging to the Boost Mobile robbery victim.<\/p>\n
Investigators said Bentancourt confessed to all three incidents and admitted to using the recovered firearm.<\/p>\n
Court records show Bentancourt was already on deferred adjudication for two prior aggravated robbery charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of those involved the use of a firearm,\u201d the judge said in probable cause court.<\/p>\n
Bentancourt was booked into the Harris County Jail, charged with three counts of aggravated robbery and one count of failure to identify. His bond was set at $751,000, and he is expected to be back in court on Monday.<\/p>\n
Now that Bentancourt is in jail, Arzate has a message for him.<\/p>\n
“Take this time that you’re locked in there. Take this time and get closer to God,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Got a news tip or story idea? Text it to us at 713-526-1111.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The suspect, 21-year-old Nico Bentancourt, is accused of carrying out a string of armed robberies on Thursday. HARRIS…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":172271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[4345,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-172270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-houston","9":"tag-texas","10":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115085004556875304","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}