Jewel Thieves Hit Again, Get $20,000

Four men brandishing handguns took $20,000 worth of jewelry and gems from a Robinson’s store in Cerritos on Wednesday in the latest of a series of armed robberies at Los Angeles area department store jewelry counters, sheriff’s deputies said Thursday.

Customers were in the store at the time but no one was injured, Sgt. Steve Manthorne said.

“It fits in with what we call the counter-smash robberies that have been happening in the past three to four years,” Manthorne said. “Numerous stores have been victims and it’s an ongoing problem.”

The thieves strode into the jewelry department at Robinson’s in Los Cerritos Center Mall about noon Wednesday, pulling out revolvers and demanding that a sales clerk open the display case, he said.

Witnesses said the robbers emptied the case of gems and jewelry, fled the store and drove off in a white Chevrolet Cavalier.

The car had been stolen and was abandoned across the street from the mall, fitting a pattern followed by thieves in similar jewelry-counter robberies, Manthorne said.

“It’s a method of operation that robbers have found successful,” he said. “They take off in a stolen car, abandon it one or two blocks away from the store and have another car waiting for them.”

In September, three armed robbers took $500,000 worth of necklaces, bracelets, pins and rings from a Bullock’s store at the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, the second such incident recently at that shopping mall.

Two months earlier, thieves with handguns took about $200,000 worth of jewelry from a Broadway store at the Sherman Oaks Mall, officials said.