Arrest Made in Buckhead Robbery Involving Thrown Ax Handle

Photo Credit: Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office

The man who police say robbed a restaurant in Buckhead and then had an ax handle thrown at him by the manager as he was fleeing through the restaurant’s parking lot has been taken into custody.

According to an Atlanta police incident report, a man walked into the Westside Pizza at 2341 Marietta Blvd. at approximately 4 p.m. on Dec. 28. Wearing a black mask concealing the lower portion of his face and keeping his left hand in his jacket to look like he was holding a gun, the man approached the store manager and demanded money, the report said.

The manager gave the suspect $880, but wasn’t ready to surrender it without a fight. The manager, brandishing an ax handle, chased after the suspect as he fled through the Westside Pizza parking lot and thew the ax handle at him, according to the report..

Two men who work at an automobile repair shop adjacent to Westside Pizza joined in the chase after the suspect and the manager ran past their workshop, said the report. The four men ran through a cut in a fence in the parking lot that led to a pathway along Adams Drive, which in turn led to an apartment complex on La Dawn Lane.

The suspect made it to the locked pedestrian gateway of the apartment complex and punched in the access code. The manager and the automobile shop workers, who didn’t have the access code, watched as the suspect ran behind one of the apartment buildings, according to the report.

Once police arrived on the scene, the two mechanics told officers that the suspect looked like one of the young men who frequently loitered at the shop. According to the report, one of the mechanics said he had actually hired the suspect to work at the auto repair shop a few months prior to the robbery, but added that the young man quit after one day.

According to the report, the mechanics said that they didn’t know the suspect’s name, but they knew that he lived in the apartment complex on La Dawn Lane and that his mother drove a black Chevrolet Camaro.

One of the mechanics described the suspect as a “chubby” light-skinned black male who had a distinctive gait due to his body weight. The manager of Westside Pizza said the suspect had spots around his eyes and stood around six feet tall.

An emotional employee of Westside Pizza told police that she wasn’t aware that the restaurant was being robbed until the suspect told her not to leave the restaurant. According to the report, she told police that the suspect had light brown eyes and had spots or severe acne around his eyes.

Further police work turned up the name of a woman who lived at the La Dawn Lane apartment complex and drove a black Chevrolet Camaro. Police determined that her son, Dvine Amaru Wise, resembled the descriptions given by the witnesses and called them in to see if they could pick Wise out of a photo lineup.

On Jan. 5, the two mechanics looked at two separate six-photo lineups featuring two different photos of Wise, but both were able to identify him as the robber, the report said. On Jan. 7, the manager of Westside Pizza also made a positive ID. The female employee was not able to identify anyone, but Atlanta police obtained a warrant for Wise’s arrest on Jan. 8.

Atlanta Police arrested Wise on Jan. 12 and charged him with one count of armed robbery, Fulton County jail records indicate. Wise faces a second count of armed robbery for a similar crime which was reported at the CVS on Bolton Road on the day prior to the Westside Pizza robbery; the police report said that after the suspect fled the pharmacy , he the same cut in the fence to reach the apartment complex on La Dawn Lane.

Wise remains incarcerated at the Fulton County jail without bond, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman told Patch.