Last week, two women entered an Eagle Rock Boulevard business, robbed the store-owner’s wallet, and within minutes charged up $1,600 on the store-owner’s credit card at Target.
The incident was narrated by Los Angeles Police Department Senior Lead Officer Nina Preciado while presenting an overview of the past month's crimes in Eagle Rock to the board of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council on Tuesday night.
The "M.O." behind the crime is a familiar one to law enforcement officers. “They go into stores and one of them asks the owner if they can see something [in the store],” Preciado said, adding that while the store-owner is distracted, an accomplice steals a purse or wallet that the business person has left behind the counter.
Preciado said that when she got the call about the theft, the first thing she asked the store-owner was if she had canceled her credit cards. The store-owner replied that she had done so, but that soon after the theft, one of her cards had a $1,600 charge on it at the Target store in Eagle Rock Plaza.
Preciado rushed to Target, where she and the supermarket's security staff reviewed surveillance camera footage at check-out counters.
"We do have one good picture of the girls sliding the [stolen] credit card at Target," Preciado told the ERNC meeting, adding that for investigatory reasons she is not yet able to make the photo public.
Eagle Rock's senior lead officer said one of the suspects is estimated to be in her late 20s, while the other suspect is a woman probably in her 50s. A third accomplice, also possibly a woman, is involved in the crime, Preciado said.
Asked by ERNC President Michael Nogueira why Target employees hadn't demanded to see the alleged thieves' I.D. before charging up the credit card, Preciado said that many stores don't ask for credit card identification because "a lot of times people say this is racism."
Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.
