A jewelry store employee was pepper-sprayed by thieves during a $100,000 smash-and-grab robbery in Corona on Sunday, police said.
The robbery occurred at Daniel’s Jewelers on 2785 Cabot Drive. Police were called there at 2:57 p.m. Four masked men entered the store and used hammers to smash several display cases before loading jewelry into a trash can and running into a nearby getaway vehicle, described as a white Chevrolet Malibu with no license plates, Corona police said in a Monday statement.
Police pursued the suspects’ vehicle on the 91 Freeway and off Gypsum Canyon Road, eventually through Yorba Linda, Placentia and Brea before officers used a PIT technique to disable the car on East Commonwealth Avenue and State College Boulevard in Fullerton.
Two of the five suspects in the car were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy and robbery: a 24-year-old Inglewood man and a 17-year-old boy from Compton. Police are still searching for three suspects who fled from the scene, described as men in their late teens or early twenties.
Authorities recovered a trash can with jewelry inside the suspects’ vehicle.
