Police Link Jewelry Store Robbery to Other Holdups

Three robberies in as many years at the same Tarzana jewelry store--including a weekend holdup in which the gun-toting owner was shot--may be the work of the same group of armed robbers, Los Angeles police said Monday.

More than $400,000 worth of jewelry was taken at 11 a.m. Saturday at Darva Jewelers in the 18400 block of Ventura Boulevard, police said. The owner, Vernon Dorn, 52, was shot in the arm, police said.

No arrests were made, but the methods used by the robbers were similar to two previous holdups at the store, in October, 1989, and February, 1987, Detective Bud Mehringer said.

“I feel they are connected,” Mehringer said. “There is some association, but we don’t know exactly what it is.”

Mehringer said the same robbers may have been involved in all three holdups or different members of a single group may have robbed the store on each occasion. Lt. William Gaida said methods used during the three robberies are also similar to those used in robberies of several other jewelry stores throughout the city recently.

On Saturday, a well-dressed woman appeared at the front door of the jewelry store, which is kept locked and is opened with a remote control, and was admitted by an employee who thought she was a legitimate customer. As the door opened, five men carrying pistols and hammers burst in with the woman. They immediately smashed 10 glass display counters and began collecting jewelry from the displays, Mehringer said.

Dorn said he was in the back room of the store when he heard the commotion. “I hit the holdup button and came out with a gun ready,” Dorn said.

But Dorn said he ducked back into the rear room when he saw the robbers were holding his son, wife and mother--all employees at the store--at gunpoint. He said he feared that if he fired his semiautomatic Uzi, he might strike a family member. After closing the rear door, he was struck by a bullet fired through the door by one of the robbers.

“After the shooting they ran,” Dorn said. “So, it could have been worse.”

He was treated for an arm wound at Northridge Hospital Medical Center and released. His wife, son and daughter were not injured.

Mehringer said the robbery lasted two minutes. The robbers escaped in a van that later was found abandoned nearby and was determined to be stolen.