Police: Los Angeles Elite Are Being Targeted in a String of Robberies Involving at Least 17 Gangs

The gangs are following and attacking those who frequent expensive hotels, restaurants, shop at luxury boutiques, drive high-end cars, or wear luxury jewelry and watches. One follow-off robbery involved two UCLA students who were robbed of their two watches and an iPhone totaling $145,000 after leaving an exclusive nightclub.

California's Los Angeles Police Department is growing increasingly frustrated by a string of robberies being carried out by gangs targeting the city’s elite and reselling their designer handbags, diamond-encrusted watches and other luxury goods worth tens of thousands to buyers willing to look the other way.

A task force has been organized by the LAPD to protect the city’s wealthiest. Captain Jonathan L. Tippet, who is head of the task force, says they have identified at least 17 gangs involved in the robberies working in South L.A. They also said there were at least 165 similar robberies in 2021, and that this year so far, there have been an additional 56 robberies of this kind.

LAPD believes the gangs perpetrating these crimes have “spotters” who go into high-end, expensive venues and stalk wealthy targets before notifying other gang members when the target is about to leave. Tippet said the gangs are violent with their victims, and in some cases, they will flash a gun in the target’s face, punch or beat on the victim, and that in at least 23 cases thus far, shots have been fired. At least two victims have been killed.

"In my 34 years on the job, I've never seen anything like this," he said.

But while some media outlets have promoted an idea that crime has increased following the COVID-19 pandemic, David S. Abrams, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, says that while the pandemic has indeed further stressed issues such as poverty, unemployment, schooling, and public health, the magnitude of these crime rates varies depending what kind of crime it is.

For instance, overall crime rates fell 23% in the first month during pandemic lockdowns, and stayed low thereafter compared to average crime rates in the five years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although overall crime rates were down, Abrams says that homicides and shootings increased substantially beginning the summer of 2020, and while protests prompted by the death of Minnesota man George Floyd may have been a catalyst for this increase, other causes for the spike in homicide and shootings still remain unclear.

According to a report released by the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice, researchers found that aggravated and gun assault rates were higher in the first quarter of 2021 than in the same period of 2020. However, despite the increases, the homicide rate for 2020 was just half of what it was in those same cities sampled 25 years ago, with 11.4 deaths per 100,000 people in 2020 compared to 19.4 per 100,000 in 1995. Meanwhile, burglary, larceny, and drug offense rates were lower in the first quarter of 2021, compared to the first quarter of 2020.

Some activists have accused police of blowing crime trends out of proportion so they can maintain their budgets, while criminal justice reform advocates are fearful that the sensationalizing of crime rates will be used by politicians to bring back past policing reforms.

Activist Hamid Khan, who is an organizer with The Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, accused the LAPD of doing just that. “LAPD has to constantly legitimize itself, constantly has to make itself useful to the community, by raising this specter of people running wild,” he said.

But Tippet is frustrated, as he believes that these robberies are still a major public safety concern, especially since some of the arrested suspects are being released from jail only to commit the same crime while awaiting trial.

One of the suspects named Matthew Adams, who is only 18 years-old, was allegedly involved in eight separate “follow-off” robberies over a six month period which began last fall. According to LAPD Chief Michel Moore, Adams was involved in a robbery in which two UCLA students were robbed of their watches and an iPhone, totaling $145,000 in stolen goods, as well as the robbery of two foreign tourists whose watches cost $73,000, and a third incident where $51,000 of property was stolen.

Adams was arrested three times between September and February, but was released due to a pandemic-related rule created in an effort to reduce jail population. Adams was recently arrested for a fourth time and is in jail, but has pleaded not guilty. He faces 20 years in prison for seven counts of robbery and two gun enhancements, his bail is set at $450,000.

Moore says he is frustrated, not only because he believes Adams was not held properly accountable for his crimes, but because he also believes other potential criminals will be misled into thinking that certain offenses in Los Angeles are being tolerated. Police Commission President William Briggs asserted that sentiment, saying that the pretrial release of suspects involved in gunpoint robberies represented a failure of the criminal justice system.

Other police officials seem more cautious of blowing these instances out of proportion. Commissioner Dale Bonner of the LAPD said last week that discussions about individual “career criminals” could be used by politicians as a way to incite fear in the public, and push forward questionable criminal justice initiatives.