LAPD Arrests Six Robbery Suspects

The Los Angeles Police Department has arrested three people suspected of robbing a medical marijuana facility at gunpoint on Eagle Rock Boulevard in March, plus three burglary suspects allegedly responsible for a rash of robberies in Eagle Rock and Highland Park.

The recent arrests, including those pertaining to three robberies in Eagle Rock and four in Highland Park, were announced to the board of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council at its monthly meeting Tuesday night by LAPD Senior Lead Officer Craig Orange, who is in charge of controlling crime in Eagle Rock.

That’s the “good news,” Orange told the ERNC Board at the . The “bad news” is that two car-borne suspects wanted for robbing six people in Eagle Rock of their iPhones are “still on the loose.”

The iPhone bandits struck again last Tuesday, August 2, on Laverne Avenue, on the west side of Eagle Rock Boulevard, Orange said, confirming Crimemapping.com data reported on Eagle Rock Patch Monday.

Orange described the bandits as “young, clean-cut guys” who drive around in a beige-colored Toyota sedan and tend to target people walking or jogging. The robberies, conducted by threat of force or fear over the past six weeks or so, invariably occur between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m.

It’s not clear whether the robbers are armed or if they pretend to be, Orange said, describing their modus operandi. While one of the suspects remains in the getaway car, the other man approaches the victim from one side and sticks an object into the victim’s side while saying, “I got a gun,” Orange said, adding that usually the victim is too scared to notice whether the robber is in fact armed or not.

Plainclothes officers of the LAPD’s Criminal Apprehension Team (CAT) were responsible for tracking down and arresting the alleged robbers of the pot dispensary, , after months of painstaking surveillance and intelligence work, Orange said.

Two of the suspects, male ex-convicts in their early 20s, have been charged with robbery, possession of illegal weapons and kidnapping, Orange said. Assisting them in their robbery of the marijuana facility was a young woman. All three are from Pasadena, Orange said.

LAPD’s CAT officers, who were honored at the August 2 National Night Out celebration in Eagle Rock, have been trying to apprehend the iPhone bandits as well, Orange said.

“I don’t want to give out too much information,” Orange told Eagle Rock Patch. “But they’ll get caught.”