Sometimes you go to the news and sometimes the news comes to you.

That was the case this morning for a KTTV news crew in LA. 

Three men, running in a single file suddenly darted from the darkness of an empty parking lot on Pacific Coast Highway right in front of the station's news van, driven by Photographer Tony Buttitta.

It was all he could do not to hit the men, but soon Buttitta knew something was wrong. 

"Something's wrong. Those guys just ran out of Duke's," Buttitta said. 

Duke's is a popular restaurant and bar on PCH and at four o'clock in the morning, we knew they were closed.

KTTV Reporter Gigi Graciette wrote down the license plate number of the car the men piled into. Graciette also starting shooting video on her phone. 

While all this was happening, police also received a 9-1-1 call from Duke's. Three men had just broken in, someone reported, and had assaulted the janitor; he was bleeding and it was bad.

As deputies and paramedics rushed to Duke's, another patrol car spotted the white SUV we reported and pulled it over.

By then, police had the full story from Duke's where the cleaning crew - a brother and sister team - confirmed that three men had forced their way in thru the kitchen, smashed Jesus the janitor's head in with a crowbar, hitting him in the hand too, in what police think was a burglary gone bad.

The cleaning crew was able to identify the suspects and four people were taken into custody. Three men, two of them 21-years-old and an 18-year-old.

Along with the driver of the Mercedes Benz, a 19-year-old girl.

The thugs were caught and the LA station had a story, somedays everything just comes together. 

H/T KTTV