Robbers Elude 5 Security Officers, Hit Music Center

In brazen morning robbery, two armed men tied up an employee at the Music Center on Monday and made off with $17,500 in checks, cash, credit card receipts and jewelry, police said.

A spokesman for the downtown Los Angeles center speculated that the men, wearing ski masks and armed with a knife and a handgun, may have entered the concessions office through an employee entrance sometime after 8 a.m. He said there will be an investigation to determine how the robbers got past the building’s security officers.

Before she was bound, the employee was forced to take the robbers to a safe in the basement where the receipts from the weekend sales were kept, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Louis Trovato. He said the woman, whom he declined to identify, was not injured.

The robbers made the woman open the safe and give up a diamond ring on her finger, Trovato said. She was the only witness to the crime, he said.

“No one saw them come or go,” he said.

Police and Music Center officials said they could not immediately determine how much cash was taken, but Trovato said the robbers will have difficulty cashing the checks.

“The checks were made out to the Music Center so I don’t know how they can get them cashed,” he said.

Howard Sherman, manager for the center’s theater operations, said the breakdown in security is being investigated.

“We don’t know how they got in but there was definitely a breach in security,” he said.

Five armed security officers were patrolling the center Monday morning, he said. The box office had not opened and the only access to the building was through employee entrances, he said.

The woman in the concessions office was going over the weekend receipts when the robbers entered, Sherman said.

Sherman said the robbery followed a busy weekend at the center, where performances of “Phantom of the Opera,” “Madam Butterfly” and a three-act work called “Spunk” drew near-capacity crowds.

In addition, the gift shop had brisk sales during a Mexican Independence Day celebration at the center that was attended by an estimated 15,000 people Sunday.