As holiday shoppers jammed the decorated Macy’s in the Westfield Fashion Square mall in Sherman Oaks Thursday, two armed robbers smashed a glass display case and ran off with an unknown amount of valuable jewelry.
Terrified workers and shoppers initially thought the sounds of the breaking glass were gunshots, but that turned out not to be true.
The heist occurred about 10:35 a.m. on the second floor of the department store in the 14000 block of Riverside Drive, but there were no injuries, the Los Angeles Police Department reported.
The men took an unknown amount of jewelry and fled in a light-colored SUV, the LAPD reported. Traffic was routed away from the area while an investigation was conducted.
Authorities initially went to the mall on a report that shots had been fired.
“Come to find out, that was not the case,” LAPD Capt. Lillian Carranza told Fox11. “What we did have was an armed robbery … a smash-and- grab on the second floor of the Macy’s, and the smashing of the glass sounded like shots being fired.”
–City News Service