CREEPY

Smiling Suspect Accused of Shooting 4 in Deadly Sonic Ambush

Roberto Silva Jr. of Omaha was arrested at the same restaurant a week earlier for buying $57 worth of food with someone else’s app log-in.

An Omaha man who was arrested last week at a Sonic Drive-In for charging $57 worth of corn dogs to someone else’s app has been accused of shooting up the fast-food joint on Saturday night, killing two employees and wounding two others.

Roberto Silva Jr., 23, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and with arson for setting a vehicle on fire—but he didn’t seem too upset about it. A booking photo from the Sarpy County Jail shows him grinning.

Police were called to the Sonic in Bellevue just after 9:30 p.m. to investigate a possible bomb in a truck and found a U-Haul in flames, authorities said.

They got a second call that there was also a shooting and one team of arriving officers found victims inside the restaurant.

“They immediately pulled three victims from the restaurant and performed lifesaving measures,” Bellevue Police Lt. Andy Jashinke said at a news conference Sunday night. A fourth victim was found a short time later.

The slain workers were identified Sunday night as Nathan Pastrana, 22, and Ryan Helbert, 28. The wounded employees are Kenneth Gerner, 25, and Zoey Lujan, 18. A fifth person who was injured but refused medical attention was not identified.

Jashinke said the police had been asked how they were able to take the hulking suspect into custody without firing a shot. “Number one, he totally complied,” he said. “And number two, he was unarmed.”

Four guns were found elsewhere on the scene, police said. The bomb squad was on the scene to inspect the U-Haul; a witness told police there were “wires and tubes” sticking out of the back of the truck, which was incinerated.

Silva has no known connection to Sonic beyond his previous arrest on Nov. 18.

That night, employees alerted cops to a fraudulent purchase of 11 burgers and 12 corndogs after the owner of a Sonic account notified them that someone unauthorized used it.

Silva posted bond two days later. Police had seized three guns from him and still had them when Saturday’s shooting occurred.

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Tracy Connor

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