Store surveillance video from Monday’s attempted robbery at Estates Consignment store in Pleasant Hill, in which two carloads of thieves wielding sledge hammers and pry bars attempted to gain entry to the store but were turned back when an employee produced a handgun.
The videos, posted to the Ring Neighbors site, cover the attempted theft from the beginning, when a woman believed to be a scout for the crew entered the store and established a phone link with the thieves.
The crew arrived in two cars, a white Infinity G35 and a black G35, with the “scout” arriving in a Mercedes SUV.
Employees said the woman checked all the cameras in the store while constantly on the phone with the robbers.
At 4:32pm, as she was trying to leave the store, she tried to keep the door open for the robbers to go inside.
Store personnel wrote:
“Our door is locked at all times during business hours and is opened for customers by our security guards. They realized that something is OFF, but they forced the door and entered the store. 6 of them ran all the way to the jewelry department to smash the cases, 2 were waiting at the door, threatening the security guard and 2 were waiting in the cars ready to take off.
Surprisingly, they were waited in the back with guns by the personnel, and they were chased out right away, without any damage to the showcases. Since they ran away immediately without any confrontation, no shots were fired.
The panic buttons were pressed immediately, and police showed up in about 30 seconds, right at the moment when they were jumping in cars and the pursuit started.
This is not an isolated case, just in the past 10 days, 3 jewelry stores were robbed in the same manner here around us, in San Ramon, Danville and Walnut Creek.
If you recognize any of these cars or any of the robbers, even if they were wearing ski masks, hoodies, gloves, please contact us or the local Pleasant Hill Police Department (Case number is 23-3973).”
There it is.
The Pleasant Hill crime wave started when the county welfare office was opened on Ellenwood Way. The mall brings in some unsavory characters, but the welfare office put PH on the list and has negatively affected its crime ratings.
That might be one of the most ignorant comments I’ve ever seen here. Congratulations. That’s no easy task. There is absolutely no statistical correlation between such things. There are ignorant fools that draw those lines though. You sound like quite the standup citizen.
I lived in the area for 15 years and witnessed it first hand. Why don’t you provide evidence that this statement is false, or another reason why the crime in PH and WC has increased dramatically in the last 10 years or so? Your self righteous flawed idealism only allows you to fallback to abusive fallacy. I can care less what you think of me, as it is irrelevant to this subject. Your personal attacks against me clearly describe you as a person.
This could be the single most ridiculous remark I’ve read here. Have you not paid attention to crime trends in California and the Bay Area? You actually think people are going to a county office and then, hey, let’s get a pizza at Melo’s, and then rob the consignment store? Crime has increased all over the state and Bay Area, not because Pleasant Hill has a social services office next to 680 at Ellinwood. Good gracious.
James and SB you are 100% correct. Social services and the current crime wave are not correlated. Willis, the burden of proof is on you. You’re the one making absurd claims with nothing but ignorance backing it up.
Yeah, but do you have the astrological evidence?
What you talking about, Willis?
Oh dear, Willis. Please take a look at James Mac’s comments. He beat me to it.
You don’t have to provide evidence to prove something is false.
You have to provide empirical evidence to show something is true.
You have no evidence that your opinion is true. It is certainly not based on empirical evidence.
Apparently they were convinced to leave after a productive discussion with management.
Pretty rapid police response. They needed to deploy a Bat-net from Wayne Industries to slow their departure just a bit.
Nice shoes and cars. Business must be good.
“Ok everybody this is a robb…. Oh, hell no!”
The crooks’ endeavors must be prosperous as they’re driving Infinities and Mercedes. I’ve also noticed these guys are often wearing these really wild/ loud style sneakers.
Fancy cars and sneakers. Every mother’s dream for her children…
Do you all live in a vacuum? Those cars are stolen and so are the plates! Even thieves are not stupid enough to commit crimes in their own cars.
As for the inane comment about a welfare office( who says that) social services bringing down Pleasant Hill, I can only shake my head!
YES! Thank you. Finally, someone speaking out against the local trolls – usually at other sites.
Keep you head in the sand and avoid reality. You can say I’m trolling but I’m only stating the obvious, which is not visible to those who’s eyes are glued shut by social engineering.
Say hello to my liddle friend….
That’s pretty wild.
Police right on their bumper but didn’t get them?
Quick work by the stores management! Also great video quality and location setup. I hope they get arrested
Agreed
Wonder if the woman is a relative.
I can’t think of an acceptable reply to that.
Great video
Someone got dissed…lol
Shut the front door!
Nice work by all.
Instructive
Look for the perp with whiplash from running away at first sight of the gun.
Too bad they didn’t shoot them. They deserve it.
No, it’s a very good thing that the thieves ran away without the store employee having shot anybody. It wouldn’t have been a justifiable use of deadly force (given that the thieves don’t appear to have been threatening deadly force, only property damage and theft); and the employee would now be looking at either prison time, or at the very least taking out a second mortgage for legal fees to avoid prison time. Not to mention civil liability.
As the line in an old movie went, “deserve” ain’t got nothin’ to do with it, never mind your opinion or mine of the societal value of the members of the smash-and-grab crew. If you have anything to lose, then taking your gun out of its holster and pointing it is a next-to-last resort; pulling the trigger is really the last-last resort. The employee did the right thing.
What Alex said.
Impressive response from the store! And amazing videos! Hope we get an update from the Police.
Did they catch any of them??? I mean that officer was right on top of them!
It’s always an Infiniti g35/37
May have some more for you…
I wonder if the silver dodge truck that was quickly driven away from the Ace hardware parking lot was part of this group? … maybe as a look out person. it looked like he was wearing some kind of face covering
It’s The Wild West out there. Luckily the good guys were prepared this time and no property was taken or individuals injured.
Firestone 11R
More fiction.
A 30-seconds police response is not a Wild West scenario. These bad guys ran like hell.
You should ask the store employees if they think it’s the Wild West, my bet is that they would say yes.
Firestone 11R
It’s astonishing really how many young people of a certain ilk are willing to risk a felony/ conspiracy charge for robbery, truly haunting them for the rest of your adult lives in anything and everything they do or apply for. How many young robbers were there in this video, and all had nothing better to do?? School, job, etc. Unemployment today is still at a very low 4.6%! Does this multigenerational crime wave ever change?? “Broke is a condition, poverty a lifestyle.”
truly haunting them for the rest of their adult lives in anything and everything they do or apply for.
It truly bothers me to no end that with incredible opportunities abound in life, that so many young people still decide to make that decision to lead a life of (violent) crime, individually but more often as a group and to do this without any hesitation, over and over and over again, without giving it a second thought. Don’t any of them have any moral compass or conscience? The percentages are just staggeringly high for some, and it’s always “crickets” in the media about it! The topic no one ever dares to bring up and discuss for fear of being permanently labeled.
Thanks for the post, Josef… thoughtfully constructed.
As for the media’s role in this we’ve been writing about youth/multi-generational crime since the early 80s. We’ll agree, we haven’t had much impact on the problem, and it still disturbs us when we see it…