Dozens of cops were celebrating at a pub. Then the robbers showed up, police say

Two armed men showed up at a Woodlawn, Md. bar on Tuesday and demanded cash at gunpoint, police say—but they probably would have thought twice had they known who was drinking there.

“I’m sure that they weren’t planning on there being a large room filled with police officers,” Baltimore County police Officer Jennifer Peach told WBAL.

A group of Baltimore County officers had gathered at Monaghan's Pub to celebrate the retirement of Sergeant David Neral, a veteran police officer who had been with the department since 1988, according to the Baltimore Sun.

While the party was going on in the pub’s main room, two masked men showed up at the pub’s carryout counter at 5:30 p.m. and demanded cash from the register at gunpoint, according to the Sun.

Then they took off. But the bartender didn’t have to go far to find police officers to chase down the suspected robbers.

“The person who had been behind the counter knew that there was a retirement party for a police officer happening, so they went into the other portion and alerted the officers to the fact that they had just been involved in an armed robbery," Peach told WBAL.

After a handful of the off-duty officers leapt into action, they arrested two suspects nearby, they said—Joseph McInnis III, 21, and Tyree McCoy, 22.

Each was charged with armed robbery, theft and related offenses, department spokesman Cpl. Shawn Vinson told the Sun.

The suspected robbers might have guessed this was the wrong bar to try to hold up. There’s a police precinct right across the street, bar owner Jack Milani told the Sun. Squad cars are always coming and going in front of the station, he added.

“It’s kind of odd you would even attempt it,” Milani said. “[Officers] are always in here. There was a decent amount of them.”

None of the employees or patrons of the bar were hurt, WBAL reports.

This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 2:29 PM with the headline "Dozens of cops were celebrating at a pub. Then the robbers showed up, police say."