Los Gatos Masked Jewelry Bandits May Have Robbed Other Stores

Los Gatos police are cooperating with law enforcement agencies, such as in the city of Santa Cruz and Alameda County, where similar robberies have been reported to catch the thieves, Sgt. Kerry Harris said.

"We feel fairly confident that these people have done these jewelry thefts in other jurisdictions," Harris said.

The other localities also experienced recent armed thefts of jewelry shops involving a pair of male suspects who acted quickly, smashed jewelry cases and left as fast as they came, Harris said.

The robbery of the Los Gatos store, Blacy's Fine Jewelers at 51 University Ave., occurred around 12:10 p.m. Tuesday, when the two thieves held employees up with black semi-automatic pistols and demanded jewelry.

The store's surveillance camera recorded one of the masked men smashing and emptying glass cases.

They fled with an undisclosed cache of jewelry and drove down University Avenue in what witnesses described as a gray Volkswagen Jetta bearing North Carolina license plates.

Police found the car abandoned a few minutes later several blocks away on Miles Avenue.

Officers learned later that the Jetta had been stolen and the license plates were lifted from another car. Officers also recovered some of the stolen jewelry where they found the car.

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