Lynn man arrested for alleged robbery as female friend waited in getaway car

LYNN – Lynn Police arrested a Lynn man after a brief car chase and foot pursuit Wednesday evening and charged him with allegedly robbing a Boston Street market at knife point, according to a police report filed in District Court Thursday.Judge Stacey Fortes-White ordered Michael Linnane, 44, of 18 Crescent St., held on $20,000 cash bail Thursday morning on charges of armed robbery, reckless driving, disorderly conduct, failure to stop for police and operating with a suspended license.Officers responded around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday to Riverside II Market at 828 Boston St., to a panic alarm, according to police reports. The market clerk told police that a white male wearing a grey sweatshirt and a “scarf on his head” had brandished a 3-inch knife during a robbery, and had taken money from the register before fleeing in a silver Saturn.Police pursued the Saturn as it drove onto the sidewalk on both Lowell Street and Summer streets, according to reports. One officer reported that Linnane “accelerated quickly while turning in the direction of” his cruiser, before continuing onto a dead-end street and jumping out of the car. He then hopped a nearby fence, but ran into waiting officers on South Common Street, the report said. Linnane was “sweating profusely, out of breath and bleeding heavily from his right hand,” the report said, and officers recovered a bloody folding knife in a nearby yard.Police found the owner of the Saturn, a 25-year-old Lynn woman, in the passenger seat of the abandoned Saturn. The woman said she was Linnane?s friend and that he had suddenly pulled the car over near the Lynn-Saugus line, taken two gray sweatshirts out of his trunk and told her he was “going to get a drink” according to an incident report.A few minutes later, the woman told police, she saw Linnane running toward the car wearing the lighter sweatshirt and with the darker sweatshirt “wrapped around his head like a turban,” the report said. When she asked what he had done, he replied, “Nothing?I?ll tell you at your house. Let me just drive,” and the woman watched as police began to pursue the vehicle, according to the report.Linnane then jumped out at the dead end street, leaving the woman to speak with the approaching officers. The woman was not charged with any crimes.Police recovered $435 inside two plastic bags from Linnane, along with the two sweatshirts he left in the Saturn. A surveillance camera at the Riverside II Market caught the robbery on tape, according to the report.In her notes, Fortes-White cited Linnane?s “extensive record” and past prison time for similar offenses as reasons for the high bail. He is due back in court July 11 for a probable cause hearing.Taylor Provost can be reached at [email protected].