Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Authorities have identified 21-year-old Mikale Immanuel Fuye as a suspect in connection with a May armed robbery at a convenience store on Hawthorne Road.
Alachua County Sheriff’s deputies were called to the Circle K at 4310 SE Hawthorne Road at about 5:20 a.m. on May 10 after a reported armed robbery. The suspects had already left the scene, but surveillance footage showed two masked Black men armed with firearms. Investigators said each appeared to be wearing one glove from a pair, with a black sock covering the other hand. One suspect was carrying a Smith & Wesson Model 6906 9mm handgun, while the other had a brown Ruger 10-22 rifle with a red bandanna tied to it in what deputies described as a “unique and distinctive” manner.
An employee and a customer were inside the store at the time. According to deputies, the employee was forced at gunpoint to open the cash register, and one suspect removed money from it. The second suspect ordered the customer to the floor and began searching through his pockets. Deputies said the first suspect then approached the customer and pressed the barrel of the rifle against his neck.
Investigators said the suspects stole personal belongings from both victims, as well as cash from the store, before leaving and heading north on SE 43rd Street. Deputies searched the area but were unable to find them at the time.
Eight days later, on May 18, deputies responded to a residence where the victims reported that someone had broken in while they were away during the day. The home had been ransacked, and the victims reported the theft of at least $6,000 in cash, $15,000 in jewelry, a handgun, business checks, credit cards, passports, and Social Security cards.
Deputies canvassed the surrounding neighborhood and located surveillance video showing an older white Lincoln sedan arriving in the area at about 8:50 a.m. The vehicle was seen leaving roughly an hour later at a high rate of speed. Investigators noted the sedan had illegal tint on the front windshield and other windows.
A search for white Lincoln sedans in the area led deputies to only one vehicle matching that description, which was registered to Fuye.
The victims also reported that their credit card was used at multiple stores on the same day as the burglary, and deputies reported that the white Lincoln was captured on video surveillance at one of the businesses.
At about 3:26 p.m. on May 20, a deputy conducted a traffic stop on a white sedan with illegal window tint after the sedan left Majestic Oaks without stopping. The driver allegedly drove away after a deputy instructed him to stop while making eye contact; the car accelerated away and made several turns in an effort to evade deputies but eventually crashed into an uninvolved vehicle that was stopped behind an RTS bus near the intersection of SW 61st Street and SW 8th Avenue. This caused Fuye’s vehicle to travel off the roadway and crash into a tree before coming to rest in a ditch next to a children’s playground.
Fuye allegedly tried to flee by jumping out of the driver’s side window of the car, but he was apprehended by deputies and a K-9. A loaded Smith & Wesson Model 6906 9mm handgun was reportedly found in the street next to Fuye’s crashed car, and forensics reportedly found Fuye’s fingerprint on the gun.
A probable cause search of the vehicle reportedly produced the burglary victim’s business checks and personal checkbook in the trunk, and a firearm was found in the vehicle, but it was not the burglary victim’s stolen firearm. Fuye was charged with six felonies and a misdemeanor in the burglary case and is being held without bail.
After a search warrant was obtained for the vehicle, deputies reportedly found additional items related to the burglary and a glove that matched the glove in the video from Circle K.
Location data from phones in Fuye’s possession reportedly placed him two miles away from the Circle K about 14 minutes before the armed robbery, and a search warrant of Fuye’s residence reportedly produced a Ruger 10-22 rifle with a red bandanna, tied in the same way as the one shown in the Circle K video.
Post Miranda, Fuye declined to answer questions about the armed robbery.
On top of the charges associated with the burglary, Fuye has been charged with three counts of armed robbery (the business is the third victim), two counts of kidnapping to facilitate the commission of a felony, three counts of possession of a firearm or ammunition by a convicted felon, and displaying a weapon during the commission of a felony. He has a juvenile conviction from 2022 and three adult felony convictions (two violent); he has served one state prison sentence and was released in December 2025. He is already being held without bail in the burglary case, and Judge Meshon Rawls ordered him held without bail in the armed robbery case, pending a hearing on a motion from the State Attorney’s Office to hold him without bail until trial; if the judge denies the motion, bail will be set at that hearing.
The investigation into the other suspect is ongoing.
Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
