 |
| Location of the "smash and grab" at the Los Cerritos Center. Store was closed for a a few hours after the robbery.... |
By Randy Economy
Staff Reporter
Los Cerritos Community News Group
Staff Reporter
Los Cerritos Community News Group
Saturday, May 7, 2011
UPDATED AT 7:36 p.m.
A popular jewelry store inside a jam packed Los Cerritos Center was robbed late this morning in what law enforcement is calling a “smash and grab heist” resulting in the loss of high valued watches and other pricey items.
The Los Cerritos Center was crowded with thousands of Mother’s Day shoppers when at least three men wearing black hoods walked into the Ben Bridges Jewelry Store carrying sledgehammers, and “just began smashing” and “grabbing” as “fast as they could,” according to witnesses.
Image via Wikipedia Less than 20 minutes later, two of the suspects were caught in nearby Bellflower. According to Nicole Noshida with the Public Information Office for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in Monterey Park, a second suspect was caught at Rosecrans and Atlantic. A third suspect is still being sought near the area of Bellflower and Park in Bellflower. Noshida described him as a male black, between 5 ft. 11 and 6 ft. tall, approximately 170 lbs., and wearing blue jeans and a blue “pull over sweat shirt.”
Small sledge hammers were used in the crime, and according to Noshida, law enforcement is not saying if the items were recovered.
Witnesses that spoke on the condition of “anonymity” reported that they saw three “hooded men just walked through the mall and walked into Ben Bridges and just started banging.”
“It sounded like gun shots. We all just hit the ground and covered our heads,” said an employee inside a nearby cosmetic store. “It was so loud, and scary, and everyone just started running and screaming,” the frightened employee remarked.
This was the second time in less than two months that this same jewelry store was involved in a “smash and grab” robbery. No word if the two crimes are connected.
Another employee from a high end clothing store located adjacent to the store said that they had 10 customers “who just began screaming, and panicked and we all ran to the back of the store and dropped to our knees.”
The operation of the Los Cerritos Center was unaffected by the robbery, and Ben Bridges was back open for business at around 4:30 p.m.
If you have any information about this crime, you are urged to contact the Cerritos Sheriff’s Department at 562 860-0044.
No comments:
Post a Comment