GILROY
– Four days after an armed robbery, the display cases at La
Estrellita Jewelry and Gifts are bare. Employees are still visibly
shaken without any answers.
GILROY – Four days after an armed robbery, the display cases at La Estrellita Jewelry and Gifts are bare. Employees are still visibly shaken without any answers.
Gilroy Police have no new information regarding Thursday’s robbery, although they have made sketches of three suspects from eye-witness accounts and from video cameras recording the incident.
More than $100,000 in jewelry was taken from the store, located at 353 E. 10th St., including gold watches, bracelets and necklaces. Among the items taken was a set of diamond earrings and necklace worth $600.
Store owners said just before noon Thursday, four or five unmasked men between the ages of 18 and 30 entered the store and began looking at CDs and cassettes for sale. After about 10 minutes, one man approached the front counter and pulled out a gun. He threatened one of the two employees behind the counter and forced her onto the floor. The men cleaned out the jewelry from the cases, took about $1,200 in cash from the register and fled the scene in a white, four-door Honda Civic, investigators said.
At one point during the robbery, a customer entered the store, but was quickly forced to move to the back of the store and lay on the ground.
The owner of the store, who wished to be unnamed to protect his family, said he thought there were four robbers in the store, but police think there were five men, plus a getaway driver who never entered La Estrellita.
According to the store owner, this is the first time his store has been robbed in its nearly three years in Gilroy. He plans on increasing security at the music and jewelry store, which already has a metal gate in the front to protect the store when it is closed.
Staff Writer Zeb Carabello contributed to this report.
