Local News in Brief : Huntington Beach : Robbers Escape With Jewelry--and Buckshot

A jewelry store owner exchanged gunfire Thursday with three robbers as they fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, jewels and precious metals.

Jack Price, 46, owner of Designer Jewelry, 16833 Algonquin St., shot out the rear window of the robbers’ car, police said, and may have wounded them.

The robbery occurred at 11:35 a.m. when one of the robbers, who had visited the store Wednesday, returned Thursday and asked Price to open the electronic entrance gate for him, a police spokesman said.

When Price opened the gate, two other men stormed the entrance and drew blue-steel revolvers, the spokesman said, adding that the suspects “were very nervous.”

After robbing the store, they drove west in a white Pontiac Grand-Am that had no license plates. Price, carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, ran after them and fired at the car.

“A (round) with 27 pellets went through the rear window, so there’s a good chance that somebody got hurt,” the police spokesman said. Price was not hurt.

One of the robbers was described as 5 feet, 10 inches tall, about 165 pounds, in his 40s with a salt-and-pepper mustache and missing upper right teeth. He was wearing a yellow rain jacket.

A second was described as 6 feet tall with a pudgy face and scar on his right cheek, and wearing a tan jacket and tan pants.

The third was described only as “neat in appearance and dress.”