4 Bandits Pull a ‘Smash-and-Rob’ Heist at Mall

Robbers held customers and employees at gunpoint as they smashed glass cases and left with jewelry from Robinson’s in Westminster Mall, police said Wednesday.

The four robbers, wearing ski masks, entered the store at 9 p.m. Tuesday, shortly before closing time, and went straight to the jewelry cases on the second floor, officers reported.

One man waved a silver revolver at people while the other robbers shattered the display cases with a sledgehammer and grabbed the jewels, Westminster Police Lt. Mike Ratliff said.

A security officer who had seen the men enter the store with a sledgehammer called police, who arrived within a minute after the men had fled, Ratliff said.

The robbers escaped through a second floor exit into a parking lot, where a dark, American-made station wagon was waiting for them, witnesses told police.

The theft was similar to nearly 30 “smash-and-rob” holdups that have occurred in Orange County since 1983. In the past year, eight jewelry store robberies have occurred in the county, four of them in malls.

“This is a whole systematized operation,” Ratliff said. “There have been cases where security cameras have filmed this kind of crime. The time the robbers come into the store, hold people at gunpoint, smash the cases, scoop up the jewelry and leave takes all of 2 minutes,” he explained, adding:

“The key is that you know what you’re doing, you work together and you’re very fast. Usually the crime is planned and the place was cased previously, so it doesn’t take more than a few minutes to pull it off.”

In January, four robbers held customers and employees at gunpoint in a Buena Park Mall jewelry store and left with about $100,000 in merchandise. Also that month, three masked bandits robbed the jewelry department of Robinson’s in the MainPlace/Santa Ana mall shortly before closing time, escaping with an unknown amount of jewelry. No one was arrested in either of the thefts.

Ratliff theorized that thieves sometimes prey on stores in malls because the crowds and confusion aid their escape.

“There are a whole lot of these that occur, and I don’t think the same people might have done it, but the method is very similar,” he said.

Ratliff added that police have no clear description of Tuesday’s getaway car or what the men were wearing. Robinson’s officials were still tallying their loss.