Thieves nabbed after Redondo Beach jewelry store heist
The four men arrested as suspects in the "smash and grab" robbery of a local jewelry store. Photo courtesy of RBPD
A massive seven hour manhunt captured four suspects in a “smash and grab” jewelry heist last Friday in which four masked thieves entered a Redondo Beach jewelry store, broke open display cases with a hammer, assaulted an employee and left in a waiting getaway car.
Four men were arrested in South Redondo – one hiding in a trash can, another near Parras Middle School – in a quick and extensive mutual aid response that involved more than 65 police officers, seven K-9s, and three helicopters.
According to police, the robbery occurred just before 5 p.m. at Beach Cities Jewelers on the 800 block of Torrance Boulevard. The four masked men entered the store and one immediately began smashing cases open with a hammer while two others scooped up jewelry into pillow cases. Another man stood lookout, and police believe a fifth man waited outside in a four-door sedan.
Things didn’t quite go as planned, however, when the store manager got involved in a physical altercation with one of the men.
“The store manager confronted the suspects and attempted to tear off one of their masks,” said Lt. Joe Hoffman, the head of the Redondo Beach Police Department detective bureau. “One of the suspects assaulted the shopkeeper, and after that they all fled to a waiting vehicle.”
The manager was punched in the head. The men quickly fled the store, heading north. Within minutes, police located their car abandoned on Pacific Coast Highway and Carnelian Avenue.
Police are unsure why the men abandoned their vehicle.
“I’m not sure if they had another vehicle in the area,” Hoffman said, “or if it was because the robbery didn’t go as planned and they were involved in an altercation with a store employee and ended up going different directions. But for whatever reason, they ended up running from their vehicle and that triggered a massive police response.”
An RBPD motorcycle officer saw the car drive by the police station, crossing Diamond Street on Pacific Coast Highway. He pursued, but was delayed by the debris of an accident that had coincidentally just occurred on PCH. By the time he caught up to the vehicle, the driver had pulled into the lot of the Exotic Pebbles store on PCH and abandoned the car, a Dodge Charger that police later discovered had been stolen in Los Angeles. Police believe at least two of the suspects exited the car at that location.
RBPD officers made the first two arrests minutes later. The robbery had been reported at 4:53 p.m. By 4:57 p.m., the first two suspects were at police gunpoint – one on Juanita Avenue, and another on Emerald Street, several blocks away. Police were receiving calls from the neighborhoods both north and south of Redondo Union High School.
“It was confusing for us at first – we had guys running almost eight blocks away from where the car stopped,” said RBPD Chief Joe Leonardi. “It took a while to figure out these guys had gotten out of the car up there and were running…They were running every which direction.”
RBPD called in mutual aid from all three beach cities police departments, as well as El Segundo, Hawthorne, and Los Angeles. A total of 65 sworn officers were on the scene, including 35 RBPD officers – more than a third of the department – and police helicopters from three different agencies.
“That is the nice thing we have in the South Bay,” Hoffman said. “A lot of areas in California don’t have the ability to get such a mass multiple aid response in such a short time and don’t have such collaborative relationships between agencies. If we only had Redondo Beach resources, it would have been very difficult to do what we did – we were strained to our max with all our available resources.”
The third suspect was found hiding in a trash can on the 1100 block of Vincent Street at 6:34 p.m. He had been spotted running through Parras Middle School. An hour later, a fourth suspect was found hiding in a laundry shed on the 400 block of North Gertruda Avenue. He’d been spotted hours earlier four doors away, where he’d fallen or jumped roughly 20 feet from a retaining wall and fence and apparently banged into a house on his way down – police received a report that the whole house had shaken, according to Leonardi.
“He was found in a laundry shed sitting on a washer and dryer with the doors closed,” Leonardi said. “He was probably moving, but finally bedded down there. There was a woman who sat in her car in the driveway during that time and didn’t know he had been in the shed at that very time.”
Police received reports of a man running across a roof and through yards on the 400 block of North Maria Avenue at about 8 p.m. but were never able to locate him. Police had set up multiple containment areas and searched until nearly midnight without further success.
Leonardi said that it is believed that the suspects may have dropped jewelry and firearms as they ran through the neighborhoods. Residents are asked to report any jewelry found and take special care to look for guns that may be hidden in the area. ER
“We would have assumed they were armed but we found no guns, and one concern we have is they may have secreted guns somewhere in the community. We have concerns a child may find these things and harm themselves or a friend.”
The men arrested were Deangelo Drake, 27 years of age, of Sun Valley; Bobby Walker, 23, of Los Angeles; Daron Polk, 19, also of Los Angeles, and Bryan Harris, 19, from Inglewood.
Hoffman said that men are believed to be either gang members or associated with gangs. He said that further investigation may reveal they have been involved in robberies using the same “smash and grab” modus operendi that has become common throughout the Los Angeles area in the last year.
“This is a tactic that is becoming popular among different gangs in the LA area,” Hoffman said. “It could be because they are having success with it – it may be quicker to get in and out quickly, or maybe they think not carrying a firearm makes it not as serious an offense. However in our eyes, it’s every bit as serious. We are in contact with other agencies and hopefully will put the pieces of a puzzle together and identify who is responsible for as many of these crimes as we can.”
“They are a part of a larger group working together out of LA and probably Orange County,” Leonardi said. “It was an excellent response by a lot of different departments to assist us, and it’s important, because what these people do in Redondo today they can do throughout the county every day and into the future. It represents a real risk to the public.”
If any residents in homes surrounding the area of Redondo Union High School locate any jewelry in their yards, they are requested to notify the Redondo Beach Police Department at (310) 379-2477. ER