Follow-Home Robberies Prompt Police Warning

Two more follow-home robberies Wednesday night and early Thursday in the San Fernando Valley led Los Angeles 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, 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.

Police say there have been eight to 10 such incidents in the Valley in the past week.

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

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

In the Van Nuys incident, a pair of assailants kept the terrified family of drummer Len Coulter--including his wife, her 78-year-old mother visiting from Texas and a 7-year-old son--bound with tape in a rear room of their Van Nuys home for almost two hours. Amy Coulter, 17, was forced at gunpoint to show one of the assailants where the family’s valuables were kept.

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

Police have cautioned holiday shoppers to be more aware of their surroundings, to keep lights on around their homes, and to drive to a police station if they think they are being followed.