3 Arrested in Follow-Home Robberies of Elderly People : Crime: Suspects are captured after officers witness an assault. They are accused of at least 120 attacks in the Valley and elsewhere.

Police on Tuesday announced the arrest of three men wanted for at least 120 follow-home armed robberies of elderly couples in affluent areas of Los Angeles and nearby suburbs, including at least 30 incidents in the San Fernando Valley.

No one was hurt in the string of robberies although a gunman generally threatened to kill the victims or blow up their homes if they notified police, officials said.

The arrests were made by detectives from the LAPD’s controversial Special Investigations Section unit, which witnessed a robbery Monday night before arresting two of the three suspects.

Detective Robert Johansen of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley Division said a residential robbery Sunday morning is believed to have been committed by the men arrested, even though it was not a follow-home robbery.

According to Johansen, a lone male armed with a gun entered a home in Encino about 10:20 a.m. through an unlocked garage door and ordered a woman to hand over about $50,000 in cash and jewelry.

“That one is unusual in that it occurred in the morning and most of the follow-home robberies were at night after the victims came home from dinner or a show,” he said. “But the description of the suspects is very similar and statements made by suspects are similar.”

Other cases in the Valley with possible links to the arrested men are still under review, spokesmen from several police divisions reported.

Several victims said the man who robbed them was soft-spoken and polite. In one case, he even gave back a woman’s wedding ring after she pleaded for it as a souvenir of more than 50 years of marriage.

But generally the robbers kept their loot, which amounts to hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewels and cash, police said. None of it has been recovered.

Hitting as often as four times a day, and sometimes exasperating police by lying low for weeks, the robbers would follow their prey home from theaters, restaurants or supermarkets.

The average age of the victims has been estimated at 75, although some have been younger. Because many of them regularly go out to dine, shop or attend meetings on certain nights of the week, the robbers were believed to have stalked them to learn their travel habits.

A gunman, his face always hidden by a scarf, ski mask or hat, would hide in bushes or other dark areas near the front door or carport, then confront the victims and force them inside at gunpoint.

In some cases he demanded particular pieces of jewelry that the victim had worn on previous days.

The driver and the getaway car were always out of sight.

The victims of one such robbery earlier this year described the experience this way:

“I was about to close the garage door when I felt a pressure on my neck,” said the Pacific Palisades resident, who was robbed along with her husband.

“He took me upstairs to look for jewels. He said he’d blow up the house if we called the police.”

She said she and her husband turned over cash and jewelry worth about $10,000.

“He said, ‘If you turn around and look at me again, I’m going to kill you,’ ” the husband recalled.

“We’re lucky we’re alive,” the woman said.

Earlier Sunday, before the Encino robbery, police believe that the men tried to rob the residents of a Hollywood home, only to flee when a resident fired two shots.

But until the suspects were nabbed by detectives who watched them rob an elderly couple Monday night there were no witnesses who could put them at the scene of a crime.

“I would say it was very highly professional,” said LAPD Detective Ron Phillips. “They were very good at it. They committed an awful lot of robberies over a long period of time.”

Phillips said he believes that Isadore Henry, 34, was usually the gunman, while Andre Dukes, 33, was usually the driver. Henry, a Mid-City resident, was arrested at the scene Monday night, along with a lesser suspect, Michael Carswell, 34. A fourth suspect is still being sought.

One of Henry’s neighbors, Debby Oppenheim, said residents often wondered about his house, which has been up for sale for several months. It only appeared to be frequented late at night, she said, when expensive cars, including a Corvette and Ford Explorer, would come and go. Police said that one of their few leads was one holdup victim’s fleeting glimpse of a four-wheel drive vehicle.

Dukes was arrested early Tuesday at his home, also in the Mid-City area. Police said he was an employee of Universal Studios, but Christine Hanson, an official of MCA Inc., said she could not confirm his status because there was a discrepancy between the name as reported by police and as listed on corporate records.

After a year and a half of frustrating police work--”We’ll solve that one after we solve the (decades-old) Black Dahlia (slaying) case,” one officer said earlier this year--it was information from a traffic stop for erratic driving that led to the arrests.

Officers stopped the car shortly after a similar robbery about two months ago. Although there was nothing incriminating in the vehicle, it fit the description given by one of the victims, “and we took it from there,” Phillips said.

In the end, the arrest was made by detectives from the SIS unit, which was criticized several years ago for allowing crime victims to be hurt while they stalked career criminals to catch them in the act.

The SIS had been tailing the suspects for some time, Phillips said, although officers from that unit were not working when the $50,000 robbery was committed Sunday morning in Encino.

On Monday evening, SIS officers tailed Henry and Carswell as they allegedly picked out the victims at a Hollywood market at 10 p.m. They witnessed the robbery and arrested the pair as they tried to get away by car and on foot.

Police said the similarities in that robbery and earlier attacks should add up to a good case.

Times staff writer Julio Moran contributed to this story.