Residents In Beach Communities Warned After Several Hermosa Beach Homes Were Ransacked
HERMOSA BEACH (CBSLA.com) — Residents in beach communities are being warned after several homes were ransacked in the past week.
The most recent incident happened early Friday morning after a woman says she was asleep when she heard two men entering her home.
"I couldn't see anything. They had flashlights in my face," said the woman, who said the men told her they were police officers.
But, she says, she quickly learned they weren't when they led her around the home, looking for money and valuables.
Police said they made the woman take off her clothes and put her in the bathroom.
The suspects left the home after a neighbor's alarm sounded off.
Police believe the suspects' accomplice (s) tripped the security system when they broke into that home.
"To get in the house, they threw a brick through a window right here," said a man named Dennis, whose home about a mile away was burglarized when he was out of town last weekend with his wife.
"When she got home, of course, that's the first thing she looked at and it was all her jewelry was gone," he said.
Next door was hit as well when that resident named Richard was also out of town. The markings on the floor show how the suspects allegedly took off with an entire safe.
"All my legal documents, my father's will, his estate, his passport, his ring that he wore for 60 years, my grandmother's necklace," said Richard while describing what was taken.
The home invasion victim from Friday's case says she's learned a valuable lesson about securing her home at night, even when the weather is hot.
"I have a sliding glass door. I had it open to the ocean air," she said.
Police have vague descriptions of the suspects but hope the community will step forward with clues.
