This is when an attempted thief was chased out of a California jewelry store after being beaten by employees he had just sprayed.
The shocking footage shows a shirtless man running out of Meza’s jewelry store in El Monte as workers chase him away from the store.
Police told local media that the man entered the store on Saturday afternoon and began shattering display cases after spraying employees to commit his theft.
The attempted robbery took a turn for the worse when the fed up workers decided to fight back and “attacked the suspect by punching, punching and kicking him out of the store.”
It’s the latest in a recent string of horrific robberies and attempted robberies at California stores, with brazen thieves taking advantage of the state’s riotous robbery laws.
Video shows the moment an attempted thief was chased out of a California jewelry store after being beaten by employees he just sprayed
The shocking footage shows a shirtless man running out of Meza’s jewelry store in El Monte as workers chase him away from the establishment.
The man fled down the street as employees chased him and his pants fell down
The incident happened Saturday when an unknown suspect entered Meza’s jewelry store in El Monte, a town east of Los Angeles, around 2:20 p.m.
ABC 7 spoke to one of the store’s employees and said the man was armed with a hammer when he entered the store.
The man immediately went to work and sprayed the employees and workers with bear repellent and then walked over to the display cases where he started vandalizing.
Instead of letting the man fight his way through the store, three employees started fighting back and attacking the suspect.
“Me, my uncle and my father were taking it off,” a worker said ABC7. I tried to defend my family because as you could see he beat my father and my uncle.’
Video shows the three men punching and kicking the suspect and even using a long stick to knock the man down just seconds before he is chased out of the store.
However, before he can get out through the front door, one of the workers grabs onto the top of the man, prompting the attempted thief to slip out to get away.
He then flees the store, runs down the street as his pants fall down and briefly flashes the person recording the video.
The employees continue to chase him and engage in conversation with him before he finally walks away.
Police said the man fled in a gray Dodge Charger.
The man had his shirt taken off while he was fighting with the employees in the doorway
This photo shows the moment when one of the store employees fights back
One of the employees is seen struggling with the would-be thief during the attempted robbery
Online, users applauded for standing up to the would-be burglar
“People need to fight back and this stuff will stop,” one person wrote on YouTube.
“Time for store owners to protect their businesses, colleagues and customers and fight back against these criminals,” another chimed in.
‘Well done employees!!’ added a third.
The incident comes just days after a group of thieves entered a nearby Pasadena jewelry store and staged a robbery in which they sprayed the owner with pepper spray.
“As soon as they sprayed me with pepper spray, I knew what was happening,” says Sam Bibikiam, owner of Jewels on Lake.
“It came from my mind: ‘I hope nobody pulls out a gun and shoots around,'” he said. ‘But nothing like that happened.
The suspects in that incident have yet to be identified or arrested.
The group left with about $500,000 worth of merchandise.
This is Meza’s jewelry store in El Monte
Over the weekend, DailyMail.com shared photos and videos of another grisly heist that saw brazen thieves caught on camera casually walking out with $9,000 worth of merchandise from individual California stores.
A group of masked thieves stormed into a Home Depot store in Signal Hill on August 27 and stole $5,000 worth of power tools, in full view of the shocked staff.
The seven men loaded two shopping carts with expensive goods and carried as much as they could in their arms before walking out.
In a separate incident the next day, a man and a woman ransacked a Nordstrom store in an Irvine mall.
Surveillance footage shows the pair walking into the store before running out with armfuls of stolen items and fleeing the scene in a getaway car.
A group of masked thieves stormed into a Home Depot store in Signal Hill on August 27 and stole $5,000 worth of power tools in full view of shocked staff and customers
In a separate incident the next day, a man and a woman ransacked a Nordstrom store in an Irvine mall
In San Francisco, the issue has become so serious that numerous retailers have completely left the Bay Area.
Of the 203 retailers that opened in San Francisco’s Union Square neighborhood in 2019, 107 were still operating as of July, a 47 percent drop in just a few pandemic-ravaged years.
A large number of major chains, including Whole Foods, Brooks Brothers and Office Depot, have closed their stores.
Luxury retailer Nordstrom has cut nearly 400 jobs as it closed all of its stores in San Francisco due to rising crime and a faltering economy in the city.
A hardware store owned by a San Francisco family lost a whopping $700,000 in one year due to “organized shoplifting.”
Dale Hardware’s owner Kyle Smith described the helpless situation in Fremont – saying his grandfather, who founded the store in 1955, would “roll in his grave” if he knew about the rampant shoplifting.
The remaining stores like Target are limited to locking their entire inventory behind glass to deter shoplifters.
The new security measures came after an employee revealed that shoplifting was happening every 10 minutes.
Multiple products, including shampoo, deodorant, toothbrushes and food items, are now stored behind glass or perspex barriers, requiring staff to access them.
Thefts in San Francisco, including shoplifting, fell significantly during the pandemic, but have increased every year since.
Last year there were 36,537 thefts and in 2023 there were 21,396 so far.