Robberies Up 29% in Valley Over 1990 : Crimes: An official calls the figure for four months alarming. Police say there is no one reason for the surge, but factors may include increased gang activity and drug use.

Irene Psomos, the 19-year-old manager of a clothing store in North Hills Shopping Center, said she was “more angry than scared” when the business was robbed for the second time in four months.

“I’m still too mad to talk about it,” she said Friday of the June 24 robbery. “I’m just angry that it happened again here.”

The robbery occurred when a man walked into Susie’s Deals about 12:20 p.m., pretended to have a gun and demanded the money in the cash register, police said. The robber left with less than $100.

Susie’s Deals, which sells clothes for under $12 in a middle-income neighborhood of Granada Hills, might seem to be an unlikely robbery target. But it is one of three businesses in the shopping center at Devonshire Street and Balboa Boulevard to have been held up in recent months. Police said the three unrelated incidents are part of a wave of such crimes occurring throughout the San Fernando Valley.

“I’m worried that this may not stop; you never know if it can happen again,” said one of Psomos’ colleagues, who asked that her name not be used.

As the two women spoke, a security guard lounged outside. During a June 14 robbery of the House of Time jewelers next door, store owner Norman Schumon was fatally shot and a bystander was slightly wounded. The Athletic X Press, in the shopping center on the other side of Susie’s Deals, was robbed in March for the second time in six months.

Robberies increased 29% in the Valley--from 1,518 to 1,962--during the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year, police said. During June alone, robberies were up 40% compared to the same month last year.

“It’s an alarming increase,” said Deputy Chief Mark Kroeker, who oversees police operations in the Valley.

The Valley robberies account for most of a 5% increase in robberies citywide during the same four-month period, said Ken Keene, a Los Angeles Police Department statistician. Outside the Valley, robberies were up only 2%, he said.

Robberies of liquor stores were up by 155% and bar robberies nearly doubled. Holdups of banks and retail stores increased dramatically. The number of pedestrian robberies grew by 35%, Keene said.

The most violent recent robbery occurred June 28 when two 19-year-olds--James White and Brian Berry--were killed during a robbery in a Subway sandwich shop at Devonshire Street and Zelzah Avenue in Northridge.

That incident was unusual because most robbers rely on fear rather than weapons to get what they want, police said.

In the wake of that incident, many Subway franchise owners complained that the late operating hours required by the company leave them vulnerable. But Kroeker, who recently made a presentation to Subway franchisees about preventing robberies, said late hours are not the problem.

“It doesn’t matter what time it closes. The experts say that robbers want to go there whenever there is the most money,” Kroeker said.

The robbery at Susie’s Deals, for example, occurred soon after the store opened, not late in the business day, he said.

“Susie’s Deals or another small Northridge business may appear to be a more lucrative target than a store in a less affluent area that has bars on the window and only $20 in the till at any one time,” Police Detective Wayne Newton said.

Police said there is no single reason for the surge in robberies. But factors that may have led to it include increased gang activity and drug use in the Valley, they said.

Although the department does not test robbery suspects for drugs, Newton, a 24-year Los Angeles police veteran, believes that drug users commit the majority of robberies.

Kroeker attributed much of the increase to crowded prisons, which lead to early releases for some criminals and probation and parole for others who might serve jail sentences if there were more cells available.

In the Police Department’s Devonshire Division, which includes the northwest corner of the Valley, about 30% of those arrested for robbery are already on parole or probation, Newton said.

As for gang members, they are often the culprits in what police call “spontaneous” strong-arm robberies, in which an apparently vulnerable person is accosted by several young men.

Because there is no single cause, no simple strategy will stop the rash of robberies, police said. Kroeker advised merchants to keep less cash on hand to limit losses and to install video cameras to help identify robbers. But he said it would take a combination of aggressive police work and citizen and merchant cooperation to reduce the number of such crimes. “We can’t stop it alone,” he said.

After Athletic X Press was held up for the second time, manager Scottie Kentopian, 22, said he adopted several new security measures, which he declined to describe.

“It’s getting crazy,” he said, adding that he had trained all his young employees how to respond to a robbery. He said the robbers are “getting more and more gutsy about this stuff. When I took this job, I thought our major problem would be shoplifting.

“This is a great store and we’re not going to let them slow us down,” Kentopian said.

Rising Robberies In the San Fernando Valley (1991) Jan.: +30.4% Feb.: +13.9% March: +29.3% April: +43.8% Victims

Type 1990 1991 % chg. Pedestrians 539 730 +35.4 Cafe/bar 77 147 +90.9 Liquor store 20 51 +155.0 Residence 147 178 +21.1 Bank 70 90 +28.6 Market 147 156 +6.1

Source: Los Angeles Police Dept.