SAN JOSE — Police said a group of people stole merchandise Sunday night from a Lululemon store at Santana Row, the latest in a series of brash public robberies in the Bay Area.
Around 6:30 p.m., a group of at least four people went into the Lululemon store and stole items worth in excess of $40,000, San Jose police Sgt. Christian Camarillo said Monday. Authorities said that the group fled before police arrived.
The group included two men and two women, according to Camarillo. One of the men at the Lululemon robbery had a “visible gun in his waistband” and the group got into a waiting vehicle and fled the scene. The suspects involved in the Lululemon incident could face conspiracy and felony theft charges, he added.
Robbers struck a store at the Westfield Valley Fair mall around the same time, Camarillo said. Thieves there stole more than $7,000 of merchandise from a sunglasses store and fled in four or five vehicles that had their license plates covered, he said.
“We’re not going to call this looting,” Camarillo said. “This is organized robbery.” He added that San Jose police were communicating with other agencies in the Bay Area about similar robberies over the weekend in San Francisco, Walnut Creek and Hayward.
Camarillo said investigators didn’t know if the group of people at Santana Row was related to the other robbery incidents.
“People need to be alert,” Camarillo said. “We’re coming into the busy holiday shopping season. We can’t be everywhere at the same time. We do need citizens’ help; when they see suspicious activity occurring, please let us know, especially at the malls.”
“(Thieves are) obviously getting emboldened, they’re moving to different locations,” he said. “Everyone’s on high alert in different parts of the Bay Area where this has happened, especially San Francisco. We don’t know what made them come to the South Bay, San Jose specifically, but they picked the wrong city to do this in this weekend.”
The thefts came on the same day a group of people committed a smash-and-grab robbery at a jewelry store on Sunday night at the Southland Mall, according to Hayward police.
Dozens of thieves also ransacked a Nordstrom store in Walnut Creek on Saturday night. Authorities said 3 people were arrested out of approximately 80 who were involved in robbing the store around 9 p.m.
San Francisco police said they also responded to reports of group thefts in Union Square on Friday night. The Louis Vuitton fashion store on Geary Street was targeted and multiple suspects have been arrested, according to authorities.
