(John Ransom, Headline USA) Robbers wearing hoodies with surgical masks over their faces employed sledgehammers to break open the window of a Beverly Hills jewelry store and then make off with between $3 to $5 million in jewelry in a matter of minutes, said police.
The local ABC news affiliate reported that the police said a group of about five men with sledgehammers arrived in a stolen automobile and went to work on the jewelry store windows and then departed using another vehicle, leaving the stolen vehicle behind.
“I look outside, I see, there are five guys with sledgehammers, axes, hammers, they’re banging on the window,” Wesley Aframian, who is neighbors to the jewelry store told ABC News.
Aframian said he tried to stop one of the perpetrators.
“And you know, we’re a jewelry store, they’re a jewelry store,” Aframian said. “We’re good friends with them. They’re very good people. I just reacted and tried to stop them.”
The Los Angeles Times reported earlier in the month that two-thirds of California registered voters believe that crime has risen in their neighborhood and half the voters blame California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom.
Those “perceptions have largely been driven by television news coverage of a series of coordinated ‘smash and grab’ thefts,” said the Times.
But Republicans argued that the perceptions are mostly driven by efforts by Democrats to defund police departments, to decriminalize criminal activity like theft and to generally be soft on crime.
“Average citizens must tell the Board of Supervisors that we need to defend and refund the police.. we simply do not have the resources we need to keep Californians safe,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told a GOP town hall.
In addition to the smash-and-grab robberies, and the high-level looting that’s been going on in California cities, the country was also treated to videos of trains being robbed as they transited through Los Angeles.
The railroad company, Union Pacific, said despite the fact that their officers have made hundreds of arrests, never once have they been contacted by the LA district attorney about a prosecution of one of those defendants, according to CNN.
“I believe Californians are fed up with this sort of lawlessness,” Republican Assembly member Kevin said. “They are ready to have a rational public safety policy again.”
That’s at least true for two jewelry store owners in Beverly Hills, California.
