Employees at a California jeweler attempted to fight back against hammer-wielding robbers and prevented a massive theft, as captured by surveillance video.
This incident occurred in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday at the Princess Bride Diamonds store in the Bella Terra mall at Huntington Beach. The Baca family has owned the jewelry store for many years.
KTLA-TV gathered the video footage who shows how quickly the employees were able to react to the robbers running into the store with hammers in an attempt to smash the display cases filled with product.
In fact, both a brother and sister of the family were working during the time of the attack.
“We had an idea that it could happen, but it’s always different when it actually does happen,” said Dallas Baca.
He mentioned that one of the attackers had managed to hit him with a hammer during the incident.
“At some point while I was fighting them, one of them actually hit me in the head with a hammer, on the side of my left temple, but I didn’t even register it until after they left because there was so much like adrenaline going on,” Baca said.
Meanwhile, a woman was able to hit one of the attackers with a chair.
“I picked up a chair and I hit the one guy in the head that was attacking Lily,” said Sarah Baca, referring to another employee.
“I’m just glad everyone’s OK. I’m glad that our team banded together and we were able to put up a fight and stop what was happening,” she added.
A spokeswoman for the Huntington Beach police, Jennifer Carey, stated that the robbers were able to steal about $7,000 worth of merchandise during the altercation.
Many other mall workers praised the employees for fighting back against the robbers.
“I guess they walked in the store, broke some things but the family fought them off, so good for them, right?” said surf shop worker Kyle Sary.
