A group of four thieves crashed a vehicle into a jewelry store in La Verne, California, before taking off with hundreds of thousands of dollars in merchandise — and it was all caught on a surveillance camera.
The smash-and-grab occurred around noon on Saturday, when the thieves slammed a white car through Rodeo Jewelers’ front glass window. After driving into the business, four men jumped out of the automobile and began smashing display cases and stuffing jewelry into bags. Police said the thieves stole around $300,000 worth of jewelry, ABC 7 reported. The store is located in a busy strip mall about 30 miles east of Los Angeles.
The video shows one of the thieves attacking the store owner with a chair before the owner and another worker appear to run out of the building. The thieves climbed over the roof of the vehicle they drove into the store to escape. They proceeded to get into a black Nissan Altima parked nearby before driving away. The store’s owner said he required seven stitches after being attacked.
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“It tends me to believe that there’s been other crimes committed that maybe aren’t exactly like this, but they’ve sort of tested tactics,” said La Verne Police Department Lt. Cory Leeper. “They are getting more and more brazen.”
George Gascon — the district attorney in Los Angeles County, where La Verne is located — has been heavily criticized for his soft-on-crime policies putting residents at risk, and has survived two attempts to recall him from his elected position.
A few days before the raid on the jewelry store in La Verne, three men wearing ski masks and holding hammers smashed their way into jewelry cases at another store just a few miles away, according to ABC 7. Investigators are still trying to determine if the two smash-and-grabs are connected, and the La Verne Police Department is asking anyone with more information about the robberies to contact them.