2 Follow-Home Robbers Ransack House : Van Nuys: Incident in which family was tied up prompts police to again warn late shoppers to use extra care as they head home.

The follow-home robbers who have plagued the Valley in the last week struck again Thursday, leading police to renew warnings to late-night Christmas shoppers.

In the latest incident, four members of a Van Nuys family, including a 78-year-old grandmother, were tied up for two hours while two men who had followed the father home ransacked their house.

In an earlier incident Wednesday night, a Northridge woman carrying groceries from her car was shoved to the ground by an armed pair who robbed her of jewelry and a purse.

“They’re follow-homes, that’s for sure,” Lt. Dan Hoffman of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Bureau said Thursday. “Only the difference this time is they ransacked a house.”

The new twist could mean more than one group is responsible, or “it could mean they’re getting bolder,” said Hoffman.

Police Department officials say there have been eight to 10 such incidents in the northwest Valley in one week.

The Wednesday-night attack on a 58-year-old Northridge woman on Los Alimos Street fits the pattern of at least eight others that have occurred in the Devonshire Division of the LAPD, said division Lt. Bob Normandy.

Two assailants knocked the woman to the ground as she toted a bag of groceries from her car to her house at about 8:45 p.m., said Normandy. They took jewelry and money before fleeing, possibly in a light brown, mid-sized station wagon.

In the Van Nuys incident, a pair of assailants kept the terrified family of drummer Len Coulter--including his wife, her mother visiting from Texas and a 7-year-old son--taped up in a rear room of their Van Nuys home for almost two hours. They even borrowed scissors to help cut the duct tape they used to bind the family, said Amy Coulter, 17, who was forced at gunpoint to take one of the assailants on a tour of the family’s valuables.

The pair accosted Len Coulter as he lugged his drums into his garage after returning from work at 1:15 a.m.

The two seemed interested only in electronics and cash, leaving behind the family’s Christmas presents, Amy said.

“He asked us if we had any appliances under the tree,” she said. “They saw the jewelry. They didn’t take the jewelry. They just wanted the appliances, as they called them.”

While Amy led the robbers around, the rest of the family sat, bound by the tape, on a bed in the parents’ bedroom, guarded by the other robber.

“They were here for a good hour or two,” said Amy. “That’s what made it worse. It seemed like they would never leave.”

The incident didn’t leave a good impression of Los Angeles with grandmother Frankie Watson, who took solace in Bible readings and some sewing after the incident Thursday afternoon.

“I wouldn’t want to live here,” she said. “I’d like to take them closer to Texas.”

In the more than 10 years the Coulter family has lived in their Forbes Avenue home, they could recall just one minor burglary about five years ago.

“This is some way to start a Christmas vacation,” said Amy.

Police have cautioned holiday shoppers to be more aware of their surroundings, keep lights on around their homes, and to drive to a police station if they think they are being followed. The incidents seem to occur between 9 p.m. and midnight.

The assailants are not afraid to use firearms, as one man who chased them found out. The 52-year-old victim was shot in the chest last Friday as he tried to take back some of the goods the thieves stole from him in the 17100 block of Prairie Street in Northridge.

A shot also was fired at a man as he fled the assailants Tuesday night in the 9300 block of Valjean Avenue in North Hills.

Although concerned enough about the rash of robberies to call in extra help, Valley police officials also said the crimes are consistent with the Christmas season, which brings out opportunists preying on cash-laden consumers.

“If you look at this historically, you always have more robberies around Christmas because people have more cash,” said Normandy. “What concerns me is this is one group of people committing a lot of robberies” in the Devonshire Division.

Until Thursday, the assailants had never forced their way into a home, leading Normandy to believe more than one group could be responsible.

“They’ve had opportunities to take cars--some pretty expensive ones, too--and haven’t, and they’ve had opportunities to go into houses and haven’t,” Normandy said.

In the space of just two hours on Tuesday night alone, four victims were attacked within a radius of a few miles in the northwest Valley.

The assailants have been described as 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall, were armed with handguns, and have taken measures to conceal their faces.

Coulter reported the pair who robbed her house covered the lower parts of their faces with bandannas, wore ski caps on their heads, and were dressed in black.

In one other incident, the assailants wore ski masks, but in most others, they concealed their faces with large sweat shirt hoods, according to Normandy.

There is no pattern in the type of vehicles the robbers follow, nor where the victims were before arriving home--although many were shopping for gifts or food.

In addition, police have received a wide array of descriptions of getaway cars, said Normandy. They have enlisted the help of Neighborhood Watch groups and urge anyone with information on suspects to call their local police station.

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Safety Tips Police have offered the following advice to avoid falling victim to “follow-home” robberies:

* Be aware of your surroundings and look for people who may be watching you.

* If you believe you are being followed, don’t drive home. Drive to a police station. If you are afraid to get out of your car, stay inside and honk the horn.

* Keep areas around your house and driveway well lighted.

* If you have a cellular phone, use it. Dial 911.