Victims Describe Harrowing North Hollywood Follow-Home Robbery

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CA — Police are looking for two suspects behind a violent follow-home robbery in North Hollywood Friday morning.

The robbers pistol-whipped a woman while threatening to shoot their victims if they didn't cooperate. The robbery follows the same pattern of more than 100 recent follow-home robberies that prompted the Los Angeles Police Department to create a special task force. LAPD Chief Michel Moore warned that the robberies have been becoming increasingly more violent, as was the case with Friday's attack.

In the early morning hours Friday, two robbers followed a trio home from a Hollywood nightclub. The robbers pulled up behind the victims as they were dropping a passenger off in the area of the 12000 block of Albers Street.

The victims — two men and a woman — described a harrowing ordeal.

"He told me, don't look at me. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to kill you, and he hit me with a gun in my face," the female victim told FOX 11.

"They put a gun in my face. In the moment, they took my Rolex, they took my diamond bracelet, they took my girlfriend’s Rolex, they took our iPhones, $2,000 cash from my pocket, they took everything," a male victim told FOX 11’s Gigi Graciette. "They told me, ‘If you’re not going to shut up, I’m going to [shoot you] in your face.’"

The suspects were described as a male between 20 and 25 years old, wearing a black jacket and a male between 35 and 40 with a beard. Both suspects were wearing gloves, police said.

The suspects drove away in a late model white Toyota.

In Los Angeles alone, police have identified 133 instances of follow-home robberies in which armed crews either followed people from pricey restaurants, clubs, or neighborhoods or targeted people wearing expensive jewelry or driving nice cars.

Moore announced the task force last week the same day a 23-year-old man was killed outside the Bossa Nova Restaurant in what is believed to be tied to follow-home robberies.

Last month, actor Terrence Jenkins narrowly escaped a violent robbery attempt at his home in Sherman Oaks Wednesday. Armed robbers approached him as he pulled up to his house, and when he sped off to escape them, they gave chase. They shot at him in a dangerous pursuit along Sepulveda Boulevard.

Detectives have noted that victims were being followed from such places such as Melrose Avenue, the Jewelry District of Los Angeles, high-end restaurants, and nightclubs from Hollywood and the Wilshire Area.

Not all these robberies are related. According to police, the perpetrators have included crews with varying gang affiliations. At least six different LA street gangs have been identified, according to the LAPD.

"It is our opinion that these crimes are all a trend, similar to the trend experienced a year or two ago with the "knock-knock" burglaries in which different crews/gangs participated in the same type of residential burglary," the LAPD said in a written statement.

In years past, Los Angeles was plagued by a trend in which burglars targeted the homes of athletes and celebrities by using their touring and game schedules to determine if their homes would be empty.

City News Service contributed to this report.