141 charged in Orange County home-invasion, smash-and-grab robberies have ties to crime rings, D.A. says
An Orange County-wide task force combating home-invasion and smash-and-grab robberies over the last year has led to criminal charges being filed against 141 suspects who are part of organized crime rings, according to the district attorney’s office.
The thefts occurred throughout the county, including Fountain Valley, Newport Beach, Orange and Irvine, and many involved violence, with seven suspects allegedly targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, prosecutors said. The district attorney’s office said it is pursuing hate crime charges against those defendants.
“We’re not going to sit idly by and let this happen,” Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said Wednesday at a news conference in Santa Ana.
“These are carefully calculated and planned attacks on what should be our safe place: our homes,” he added.
My family and friends haunted the place for years. I stop in every once in awhile, not just to conjure up Proustian memories but because the no-frills menu is still delicious.
Most of the suspects facing charges in connection with robberies were not from Orange County, according to prosecutors. They lived in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, the district attorney’s office said.
Some of the suspects are residents of Chile who have been taking advantage of a loophole that allows them to flee the United States before facing prosecution, Spitzer said.
All of the defendants are members of one of five organized crime rings investigated by Orange County’s Home Invasion Eradication Interdiction Strike Team, Spitzer said. The robberies and burglaries they are accused of “are not crimes of opportunity,” Spitzer said.
“These crews that we are talking about today are organized criminals — organized — who are absolutely working together to exploit the vulnerability of people who have gone back to work,” Spitzer said.
Three men were arrested Tuesday after authorities say they carried out a smash-and-grab robbery at a Tustin jewelry store then led officers on a car chase that ended in a crash.
Among the suspects charged were four men who allegedly broke into a Fountain Valley residence in January, forced their way into a locked bathroom, then held the woman inside at gunpoint. Her husband was reported to have been pistol-whipped, and their 12- and 14-year-old children were home at the time.
The men allegedly stole two vehicles from the family. One was pursued by police for about 10 minutes in a high-speed chase that ended in Long Beach.
The district attorney promised to prosecute burglars and thieves to the full extent of the law. However, Spitzer railed against what he described as lax-on-crime policies in neighboring areas that he implied promoted lawlessness.
“They’re coming into our county, which means that lenient policies in Los Angeles, a contiguous county in the [purview of the] Los Angeles [County] district attorney, has major implications for other counties,” Spitzer said.
Spitzer also criticized a “handful” of judges he accused of consistently throwing out consideration of prior “strike” offenses.
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