Three people used power tools to break the front window and cut the lock off a security gate at A-Z Market on Bellflower Boulevard just after 3:30 a.m. Saturday, allowing a wave of 30 to 40 others to pour inside and ransack the family-owned store in roughly two minutes. L.A. County Sheriff's Department deputies arrived to find the block near the intersection of Bellflower and Somerset boulevards choked with 100 to 150 vehicles stopped in the roadway and within the intersection.
Surveillance footage recorded the initial breach and the crowd flooding through the opened gate. One of the store's owners watched the break-in unfold in real time from home via the store's cameras, including the moment a suspect used an electric saw to cut through the lock. The owners estimate the combined loss of inventory and property damage at close to $30,000.
The suspects who entered the store were masked. After about two minutes inside, they left and blended back into the street takeover crowd, making it impossible for deputies to connect anyone at the scene to the burglary. Deputies issued multiple citations related to the street takeover itself. No arrests have been made in connection with the burglary.
The Bellflower incident is the fourth burglary tied to a street takeover in L.A. County this month. On Aug. 8, shortly before 2:30 a.m. 11 people broke into an AutoZone in East Los Angeles during a street takeover in what the Sheriff's Department described as a "coordinated, mob-like burglary." That same AutoZone was hit again the following day, Aug. 9, in an incident also tied to a street takeover. A third burglary — at a separate AutoZone in South L.A. — occurred on Aug. 9 as well, also connected to a street takeover.
The Sheriff's Department said Sunday that it has the authority to seize vehicles involved in a takeover through court-authorized seizure orders, which can be executed days after an event. Deputies from the Lakewood Sheriff's Station are leading the investigation into Saturday's burglary. "Our message is clear: Lakewood Sheriff's Station will continue to work diligently with our law enforcement partners to identify those responsible, and disrupt these illegal street takeovers, prevent violence, and ensure our communities remain safe," the department said in a statement Sunday.
The pattern — using the chaos of a street takeover to cover a burglary — has repeated across at least three separate locations in under two weeks, raising questions about how law enforcement can deter groups that use large crowds as both cover and escape. In every case so far, the burglars have left with merchandise and no arrests have followed.
Anyone with information about Saturday's incident at A-Z Market can call L.A. County Sheriff's detectives at 562-623-3500. Anonymous tips can go to Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or online at lacrimestoppers.org.
