60 Held Hostage in Store

It was before dawn Monday, and already stockers and managers bustled around the massive Target store in Culver City, putting goods on shelves and money in the registers.

For one stocker, a 41-year-old father of four working in the housewares section, this was just another graveyard shift. Then a co-worker strode quickly past him, terrified.

“He’s got a gun, he’s got a gun,” she mumbled.

Within minutes, they would be among 60 hostages held by three robbers inside the store in the 10800 block of Jefferson Boulevard.

Later, police would wonder if it was an inside job. The robbers “knew when the alarm system would be turned off,” said Culver City Police spokeswoman Randi Joseph. They knew “when they would be able to get in undetected, when no one would be able to see them.”

The men probably entered the store during a shift change, sometime after 4 a.m., she said. They wore the Target uniform of red-collared shirts and casual pants.

The 41-year-old stocker was busy, and happy that he would be going home soon. Suddenly, warned of danger a few feet away, he looked up to see a man pointing a large handgun at a co-worker.

“Then he pointed it at me,” he said.

The robbers rounded him up with other workers, took them to the middle of the store and told them to sit in a circle. One of the men appeared to be the leader; the other two continued looking through the store for employees.

The robbers frisked employees, searching for jewelry and combing through wallets, then demanding cell phones.

“If anybody does anything foolish,” they barked from the middle of the frightened circle, “we’ll start shooting.”

They demanded to know where the store’s security cameras were, and tore one apart in front of the workers, many of whom kept their heads down and eyes averted.

A young stocker who had been working in the back, unaware of the takeover, said that as he walked out, “a man told me, ‘Get over here, get over here.’ At first I thought it was a joke--he was dressed like us--so I told him no, I’ve got work to do. Then all of a sudden he pointed a huge, long handgun at me. I did what he said. He made me go sit in a circle with the others.”

At least two employees, unnoticed by the robbers, had fled out a door in the dock area, screaming at a security guard as they reached the parking lot to call 911.

“They were scared as hell,” said guard Larry Sibley.

Police said another employee was able to call for help inside the store.

By 6 a.m., the robbers realized that the Target, a low-slung building between a Staples and a Ross store, was surrounded by police. Officers from Culver City and Los Angeles and a sheriff’s SWAT team had sealed off the building.

The robbers then devised an escape plan, the 41-year-old stocker said. They would pose as hostages themselves.

Their plan was to gather the employees near the back of the store, open the back doors and force everybody to run at the same time. “Just trust us,” they told the workers. “We just want to escape. Just open the doors and we’ll all stream out together.” One robber asked if anyone had on size 9 or 10 running shoes.

But as everyone ran, police stopped them and ordered them to put their hands up. Some were told to lie on the ground. Police photographed and interviewed each one.

Identifying the robbers was difficult, police said, because Target had just hired holiday workers whom others didn’t know.

But of the group, police arrested two: Omar Samuels, 22, of Altadena, and Laron Bass, 20, of Inglewood.

A third suspect, a teenager, escaped. A neighbor, however, reported someone running through yards and jumping fences, and at about 1 p.m. police dogs found the teenager in a nearby creek.

None of the employees who recounted the ordeal wanted to be identified.

“I just wanted to live,” said the young stocker who had been working in back. “I thought, why shoot me when you’re doing something stupid like robbing this store? We all just wanted to make it through.”

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Times staff writer Elise Gee contributed to this story.