SOUTH-CENTRAL : Robbers Posing as Police Still at Large

Investigators continued to search last week for three robbers who posed as police officers before holding up 12 employees and customers at a furniture store and making off with an undisclosed amount of money and jewelry.

Another suspect was cornered in an alley and arrested by police officers soon after the 10 a.m. robbery Saturday at Luxury & Quality Furniture, 6711 S. Broadway. The man, John Jimenez, 41, was charged with nine counts of armed robbery.

Furniture store owner Gorgonio Anaya said he was in the back of the store checking inventory with a few employees when four men with handguns and police caps entered the store, two through the front door and two through the rear.

“They shouted ‘Police!’ and told everyone to get on the ground,” Anaya said.

He remembered wondering why police would storm his store before realizing that the men had nothing to do with law enforcement.

“One of them kicked me in the back and another hit a man in the head with his gun,” Anaya said.

Victims’ hands were bound behind their backs with plastic handcuffs, he said, while employees and customers alike were robbed of watches, jewelry and money. Anaya said the items taken from him and his employees alone totaled about $2,000.

“We all lay there and did what they told us,” he said. “We knew that was the only way we wouldn’t be killed.”

Meanwhile, one employee--who escaped detection by the robbers--crept to a phone in the rear of the store and called police, who arrived in time to arrest Jimenez.

Officers cordoned off the area around the store but were unable to find the other suspects.

Detective Tony Finchen of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Newton Division said investigators have lifted fingerprints at the crime scene in hopes of tracking down the fugitives.

The robbery at the furniture store, Finchen said, marked at least the third time in Newton Division this year that robbers passed themselves off as police officers. It is unknown, however, if the same men were involved in those crimes.

Still, Finchen warned community members to check the identity of people claiming to be police “if they have a likely suspicion” that the officers are not real.

“If you have a gut feeling that these guys aren’t real, there are things you can do to make sure,” he said.

Among them:

* Ask to see their badges.

* Ask to see their LAPD identification cards.

* Call the local police division to determine if officers have been sent to your location.

Meanwhile, friends have urged Anaya to add security at the store he has owned for the past eight years, but the businessman has shrugged off the advice.

“The bad guys can always get you if they want,” he said. “They can just wait for you to go outside.”