141 people charged in recent Orange County home invasion robberies, smash-and-grab burglaries
More than 140 people arrested by an Orange County-wide task force combating home-invasion robberies and smash-and-grab burglaries now face criminal charges, Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said Wednesday at a news conference in Santa Ana.
The thefts happened throughout the county, including Fountain Valley, Newport Beach, Orange and Irvine, and many involved violence.
“These are carefully calculated and planned attacks on what should be our safe place: our homes,” Spitzer said.
Among the 141 suspects charged were four men who allegedly broke into a Fountain Valley residence in January, forced their way into a locked bathroom, then held the woman inside at gunpoint. Her husband was reported to have been pistol whipped, and their 12-year-old and 14-year-old children were home at the time.
Those thieves allegedly stole two vehicles from the family. One was pursued by police for about 10 minutes in a high-speed chase that ended in Long Beach.
Most of the people facing charges in connection with robberies and burglaries in Orange County over the past year were not from the area. They included people from Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties, according to the district attorney’s office. Some are residents of Chile who have been taking advantage of a loophole that allows them to flee the U.S. before facing prosecution, Spitzer said.
All of the defendants are members of one of five organized crime rings investigated by Orange County’s Home Invasion Eradication Interdiction Strike Team, Spitzer said. The robberies and burglaries they are accused of “are not crimes of opportunity,” Spitzer said.
“These crews that we are talking about today are organized criminals — organized — who are absolutely working together to exploit the vulnerability of people who have gone back to work,” Spitzer said.
Prosecutors allege seven of those accused in recent Orange County heists specifically targeted Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Spitzer’s office is pursuing hate crime charges against those defendants.
“We’re not going to sit idly by and let this happen,” Spitzer said.
The district attorney promised to prosecute burglars and thieves to the full extent of the law. However, he railed against what he described as lax-on-crime policies in neighboring areas that he implied promoted lawlessness.
“They’re coming into our county which means that lenient policies in Los Angeles, a contiguous count, in the [purview of the] Los Angeles district attorney, has major implications for other counties,” Spitzer said.
He also criticized a “handful” of judges he accused of consistently throwing out consideration of prior “strike” offenses.
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