Jewelry Store Robbed in Escondido

The Royal Maui jewelry store at the Westfield Mall on Via Rancho Parkway was robbed at about 2:30 p.m. on June 9.

According to a witness at a nearby kiosk, three Causcasian men entered the mall; while two of them held the doors open, the third man smashed a window with a sledgehammer. Two male employees ran out of the Brookstone store next door and one of them asked, "What are you doing?"

The robbers were in their early 20s and, according to the witness, "looked scared." One robber grabbed two watches, and the three men ran to a waiting red Nissan Versa with no license plates. The car stalled as the men tried to make a getaway, but even so, they eluded the police who were on the scene minutes later.

Almost immediately, the area near the window was cordoned off and workers replaced the broken glass. "I guess you don't want a jewelry store left open for very long," the witness quipped. She mentioned that this was the second time the store had been robbed since December.

"Around the holidays," she said, "someone drove through the JCPenney window, and while security was down there, someone shot out the window of the jewelry store [at the other end of the mall] and took some property. I wasn't there that day, but I saw the one today. I was terrified. I'm just glad everyone is okay. My mom wants to wrap me in pillows."