Police Investigate 2 Home Robberies

An armed man broke into the home of a sleeping family, tied them up and robbed them late Thursday night in Encino, police said.

Earlier, an apparently unrelated home-invasion robbery occurred in Lancaster, where two men forced their way inside a house and stole money and jewelry. No one was injured in either robbery.

In the Encino incident, a man armed with a gun confronted a husband, wife and their daughter at 11 p.m. in their home in the 1600 block of Valley Meadow Place, said Det. Carole Hughes of the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Valley division.

The robber, described as a white male, about 30, weighing 220 pounds and standing 5 feet, 11 inches tall, stole several items and fled, Hughes said. Police declined to say what was stolen.

In Lancaster, two men knocked on the door of 38-year-old Michael Brown, a resident of the 500 block of Avenue H-12, and asked to bor

row tools to repair their car, authorities said. When he opened the door a crack, they forced their way inside and pulled out a gun, said Lt. Steven Fredericks of the county Sheriff’s Department.

The men tied Brown up and robbed him, fleeing in a late-model minivan. The suspects were described only as men approximately 24 and 30 years old.