Youth ‘Rat Packs’ Target Stores : Crime: Gangs of up to 40 teens pillage sneakers, clothes and other goods as merchants watch helplessly.

They are young and brash, travel in large groups, and intimidate and harass store owners while walking off with their merchandise, police say.

Police are warning Santa Monica merchants about such bands of youths, saying that in at least three recent instances, groups of as many as 40 teen-agers have swarmed into local stores during afternoon hours and made off with hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars worth of sneakers and athletic wear.

Authorities call it “rat-packing,” and say it is a growing practice among gang members in other areas of the city. In Hollywood, they say, several such robberies have occurred in recent weeks, sometimes targeting liquor and convenience stores.

“It seems to be the popular crime of the summer among juveniles,” said Lt. Robert Thomas of the Santa Monica Police Department. “They go in and completely overwhelm the merchants, (who) are so intimidated they are afraid to take action against any of them.”

Santa Monica stores are among the latest targets. But police said it is not clear whether the practice has spread permanently from the southern and eastern parts of Los Angeles to the Westside, as other gang tactics often do, or if the local incidents have been isolated and the work of the same youths.

“I don’t think it is anything that is that well organized,” said Thomas. “But it has happened enough for us to be concerned about it.”

Since July 23, at least two stores on Wilshire Boulevard have been hit, and Thomas said he suspects there may have been others.

Police have arrested nine juveniles in two robberies of Athletic X-Press at 1332 Wilshire Blvd.--four in connection with a July 23 robbery, and five more after a similar incident July 27. Some of the youths were caught as they changed into stolen clothes and sneakers a few blocks away, according to police reports.

Some suspects also may have participated in a similar robbery of Brooks Shoes at 1703 Wilshire Blvd., also on July 27, Thomas said.

During the Athletic X-Press robberies, at least 20 youths charged into the store and headed right for the clothing and sneakers police said. Some of them had been there the Saturday before, looking around before stealing one pair of sneakers, said store owner Michael Dobbin.

“They’re just running in, picking stuff off the shelves and running out,” Dobbin said in an interview.

One employee immediately called the police but Dobbin said no effort was made to stop the youths. “Are you nuts? I’m not going to take on that many kids. Not a chance,” he said.

In the July 27 robbery at Athletic X-Press, one youth ripped a coatrack off its bearings and walked out of the store with the entire rack, with six jackets on it. Each jacket was worth about $100 and bore the insignia of the Los Angeles Lakers, Raiders or other popular sports team, according to a police report.

An unknown number of sneakers, apparently all Nike brand, also were stolen, and authorities believe at least $2,000 in merchandise was taken altogether.

One Athletic X-Press employee said he “did not see a single juvenile exit the store without carrying store property in his hands” during one of the robberies, according to a police report.

Police said they regarded the incidents as robberies rather than shoplifting because the youths were using intimidation and threats. The youths do not seem to be afraid of the store owners or the police, and in some cases, simply walked out with the stolen goods without bothering to flee, authorities said.

During the robbery of Brooks Shoes, for instance, some suspects were taking sneakers from the stockroom when an employee warned them that she was going to call the police.

“We don’t care,” one of the youths told her, according to a police report. The report said some of the suspects left the store and got on an RTD bus that happened to be going by.

Police are unsure whether the youths were gang members. Thomas said most of the participants in the robberies were black males who appeared to be in the 14-17 age range, although a few females took part as well. All of those arrested were from South-Central Los Angeles or the Crenshaw area.

Asked why the youths are coming to Santa Monica, Thomas said: “Maybe it’s the easiest bus route from where they live.”

In Venice, such attacks have occurred, “but we don’t have what I would call a problem with it,” said Capt. John Wilbanks of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Pacific Division. His observations were echoed by several other LAPD divisions around the Westside.

Perhaps the first of the recent rash of “rat-packing” attacks occurred in April, when a band of youths allegedly slapped and intimidated a liquor store owner in South Los Angeles while others grabbed liquor and “whatever they could get their hands on,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Markus, in charge of felony gang prosecutions in Compton.

In June, seven alleged gang members--four adults and three juveniles--were charged with felony counts of robbery and burglary in connection with that April incident, Markus said. “These guys are real bold in what they do--I mean real bold,” Markus said. “They don’t hesitate at all.”

Detective Joe Lumbreras of the LAPD’s West Bureau gang unit, Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, said such robberies have also occurred in Hollywood in recent months. He said there have been three or four such attacks in the past few weeks alone, usually at stores near high schools and bus stops.