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MERCED, Calif. -- Cell phone video shows about a dozen people inside a mall jewelry store in Central California busting glass display cases and stealing merchandise.

"There was jewelry flying everywhere and glass flying everywhere," said Graciela Pena.

Merced Police say they were called to the Merced Mall just before 1 p.m. Tuesday for a disturbance involving a group of 10 to 15 male juveniles and adults.

Video shows thieves shatter jewelry store glass displays at mall in Central California
By Jessica Harrington
Wednesday, February 9, 2022 9:33PM
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Cell phone video shows about a dozen people inside a mall jewelry store in Central California busting glass display cases and stealing merchandise.
MERCED, Calif. -- Cell phone video shows about a dozen people inside a mall jewelry store in Central California busting glass display cases and stealing merchandise.

"There was jewelry flying everywhere and glass flying everywhere," said Graciela Pena.

RELATED: CHP recovers $185,000 worth of stolen merchandise, including items from Louis Vuitton in SF

Merced Police say they were called to the Merced Mall just before 1 p.m. Tuesday for a disturbance involving a group of 10 to 15 male juveniles and adults.

Investigators learned the group showed up to the mall with masks and hammers, smashed the jewelry cases at Prestigio Jewelers, stole items and then took off.

Employees at the Baskin Robbins near the entrance saw the suspects come and go.

"They were running out, you could see the hammers in their hands when they were running out," said Baskin Robbins employee Patricia Bibee.

Merced Police are still trying to determine the total value of the jewelry that was stolen.

Officials say this an unusual event for this community.

"We typically see these types of incidents in the Bay Area and other cities that are maybe not prosecuting these types of cases. We don't typically see that here in Merced," said Merced Police Lt. Emily Foster.

Investigators say they've obtained surveillance video and cell phone video and are now searching for the group involved.

One of the witnesses says it's sad these crimes are happening in Merced.

"It just feels like this is just more common everyday. Like, it didn't even surprise me that it was happening and that's the sad reality, that it didn't even surprise me," Pena said.

No one was injured during the incident. Anyone with information or other cell phone video is asked to call Merced Police at 209-385-6905.

Wantez Tulloss has a long criminal history, which includes first-degree robbery, theft, assault, and three violations of domestic violence no-contact order. Now, he’s been charged with first-degree assault.

On Jan. 31, police say he randomly attacked an Amazon employee, hitting her in the head with a baseball bat from behind in Belltown. After the attack, police say Tulloss got a slice of pizza.

The brutal beating briefly knocked the woman unconscious. When police arrived, they saw her bleeding out of one ear. She suffered multiple skull fractures and will face “significant surgery” to repair the damage, according to court documents.

Local media are choosing not to report an important detail: Tulloss appears to be a homeless man. He is currently living in transitional housing and was arrested after an officer saw the suspect with his case manager.

According to the police report, Tulloss lives in a complex maintained by Plymouth Housing.

Plymouth Housing provides permanent supportive housing services for homeless individuals. It’s part of the Housing First strategy where the homeless are given homes with no conditions before being provided wraparound services to address the underlying causes of their homelessness.

And at Plymouth Housing, they approach their work using a harm reduction model for the residents who are drug addicts. According to its website, Plymouth Housing creates a “nonjudgmental space” for its residents “to make changes if, and when, they are ready.”

These types of housing programs, which are purposefully placed in densely populated neighborhoods, often take in dangerous felons. They pose a significant danger to the community, but activists, politicians, and media members shame you for pointing this out. You’re supposed to mimic Plymouth Housing workers and be nonjudgmental towards drug-addicted, criminal homeless people. Perhaps it’s why media outlets here ignored this detail.

Minneapolis Suspends No-Knock Warrants After Police Killing

Amir Locke, 22, was fatally shot as the police carried out a search warrant. He was lying under a blanket until an officer kicked the couch, revealing a gun, body camera video shows.

Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis on Friday announced a moratorium on no-knock warrants one day after the Police Department released body camera footage of its SWAT team fatally shooting a man who was lying on a couch under a blanket during an early-morning raid.

The man who was killed, Amir Locke, 22, had a gun in his hand, but it is unclear whether he was aware that police officers had entered the apartment shortly before 7 a.m.

Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, who led the prosecutions of former police officers in the killings of George Floyd and Daunte Wright, said his office would join a review of the police shooting. The mayor said no-knock warrants could not be requested or conducted while the city evaluated its current policy.

The graphic and brief video released by the Police Department on Thursday night shows the encounter from Wednesday morning, when its SWAT team had been carrying out a warrant for the Saint Paul Police Department’s homicide unit.

In the video, an officer is seen quietly turning a key in the apartment door before officers file in and begin to yell.

“Police! Search warrant!” several officers are heard shouting.

“Hands, hands!” one officer says.

“Get on the ground!” another yells.

One officer kicked the back of the couch, jarring Mr. Locke and making a gun visible. The police fired at least three times in response.

The entire encounter took less than 10 seconds.

In a news release published the day of the shooting, the Police Department said officers had performed emergency aid on Mr. Locke, who died at a nearby hospital.

“I’m under no illusion that processing this video will be easy,” Amelia Huffman, the city’s interim police chief, said at a news conference on Thursday. “It won’t be. It shouldn’t be. These are wrenching videos to watch. They’re painful, but it’s necessary.”

Chief Huffman said that officers had a warrant for three locations in the apartment complex, and that Mr. Locke was not named in the original warrant.

Mr. Ellison, the state attorney general, said on Friday that his office would partner with the Hennepin County attorney’s office to review the shooting.

“Amir Locke’s life mattered,” Mr. Ellison said in a statement, promising the Locke family “a fair and thorough review.”

Mr. Ellison led the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer who pleaded guilty to federal crimes for the killing of Mr. Floyd, and Kimberly Potter, a former Minnesota police officer who was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Mr. Wright.

The Minneapolis Police Department said in a statement that one officer fired shots at Mr. Locke, and it released the personnel file of Officer Mark Hanneman.

Ben Crump, a lawyer representing Mr. Locke’s family, compared the shooting of Mr. Locke, who was Black, to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black medical worker who was fatally shot by Louisville police officers in March 2020 during a botched raid on her apartment.

“If we learned anything from Breonna Taylor it is that no-knock warrants have deadly consequences for innocent, law-abiding Black citizens,” Mr. Crump said at a news conference on Friday.

No-knock warrants allow the police to enter property without first announcing their presence and are primarily used when there is concern that evidence will be destroyed or officers will be put in danger.

Tony Romanucci, another lawyer representing Mr. Locke’s family, said Mr. Locke had “no idea” who was in his apartment. “Had they announced who they were and why they were there, this tragedy could have been averted,” Mr. Romanucci said.

Mayor Frey said in a statement on Friday that no-knock warrants would not be allowed while the city reviewed its policy with experts who helped create “Breonna’s Law,” an ordinance passed after Ms. Taylor’s death that bans no-knock warrants in Louisville.

During the moratorium, which the mayor said was “to ensure safety of both the public and officers,” the police must knock, announce their presence and wait a reasonable amount of time before entering with a warrant.

Mr. Locke’s father, Andre Locke, said at the news conference that his son was the third oldest of eight siblings. He said his son had been working for the food delivery service DoorDash and was “a week away” from moving to Dallas, where his mother, Karen Wells, lives. Andre Locke said that several of his cousins worked in law enforcement and that one of them was a mentor to Amir.

“It was hurtful, it hurt deep to see my son executed, to see our son executed,” Mr. Locke said. “But the part that struck me the most was that he never got a chance to see or to know who killed him.”

Ms. Wells said she and her son would frequently talk on the FaceTime app when they were apart.

“I am going to miss just being able to see my son grow into a man, that’s what I am going to miss,” Ms. Wells said. “I am going to miss the fact that he didn’t, he won’t even get the chance to become a father and give us grandchildren.”

The Minneapolis Police Department has been under scrutiny since Officer Chauvin held his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest in May 2020.

Mr. Floyd’s death generated widespread outrage, and protests across the country that summer called for social justice and police reform. An attempt to change policing in Minneapolis failed in November, when 56 percent of voters rejected a ballot measure that would have replaced the city’s Police Department with a public safety agency.

The release of the footage of Mr. Locke’s death came more quickly than in past cases, and after pressure from Representative Ilhan Omar and state officials.

Ten members of the Minneapolis delegation of the State House of Representatives had called for the footage to be released immediately in a letter to Mayor Frey and Chief Huffman.

“Minneapolis has a long path before us in establishing a trusting, effective and professional relationship between its Police Department and community,” the representatives wrote.

Fresno police released video Friday from officer-worn cameras from the night a man tried to commit “suicide by cop,” according to police. The 26-year-old man identified as Ryan Brooks was critically wounded in the shooting about 10:30 p.m. Dec. 22, according to police. Officers shot Brooks outside Fort Washington Fitness, where the call appeared to originate, at the shopping center near North Friant Road and Fort Washington Avenue in northeast Fresno. The video shows the officers fire more than a dozen rounds, and continue to fire after Brooks went to the ground. Police say he was still a threat as he was seated. Lt. Bill Dooley said Friday that the officers involved have not been named but returned to work after a routine paid leave of absence related to the shooting.

He told The Bee that police would not say Friday how many rounds were fired or how long either officer has been with the department. Dooley said the video includes all of the information that investigators are ready to release and nothing further was available Friday to protect the investigation. “An officer-involved investigation is a thorough investigation,” he said.

It only came to light later, according to police, that Brooks himself made the 911 call that brought officers to the scene, where they found him driving erratically in the parking lot before stopping in a dirt field on the southwest corner nearest to Woodward Park. “I’m at Fort Washington Fitness,” he says on the 911 call. “There’s someone driving around saying they’re going to start shooting people.”

The newly released video also shows an officer speaking to Brooks over the phone as the officer is on his way to the scene, but Brooks does not admit to the intentions police have said he had. Police have said Brooks was trying to draw the attention of officers, and, when they stopped him, acted suspiciously with his hand in his pocket. He pulled what appeared to be a gun from his pocket and took a “shooter’s stance,” police said, before he was shot by two officers. Officers can be heard in the video repeatedly telling Brooks to take his hand out of his pocket, and saying “I’m going to shoot you” at least once. Brooks had his right hand in his pocket and his left arm was straight at his side, video shows, before pulling his hand out quickly. He was holding a green plastic toy gun in an effort to commit “suicide by cop,” Deputy Chief Burke Farrah said on the night of the shooting by police.

Upon reviewing the video, the community advocacy organization “Fresno Building Healthy Communities” demanded police reform and action to be taken by the City of Fresno and the Fresno Police Department. The organization characterized the police shooting of more than a dozen rounds as “recklessly fired” and said the community’s safety was put at risk. “This latest case involving Mr. Brooks further demonstrates that the Fresno Police Department is not equipped to respond to mental health calls,” the organization said in a news release. “We cannot allow this violent behavior to continue. Fresnans are still demanding real reform. It is unacceptable to continue to pay for a public safety system that is not safe at all.”

Attempts by The Bee to reach Brooks were unsuccessful. He has been released from Community Regional Medical Center, according to a hospital spokesperson. Brooks faces possible criminal charges for resisting police and brandishing an imitation firearm, both misdemeanors, police have said. The Fresno County District Attorney’s Office has not received reports from investigators that would allow prosecutors to decide whether to charge Brooks, according to Assistant District Attorney Jerry Stanley, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office. Brooks has not been charged as of Friday.

Port Orchard police are looking for a man seen on video Wednesday ramming a stolen car into a patrol vehicle in the Goodwill parking lot to make his getaway, despite efforts by officers to block him to keep him from fleeing.

By the end of the video, posted to the streaming service Streamable and filmed by an unidentified bystander, the stolen car struck at least one other nearby car before speeding off.

Port Orchard Police Chief Matt Brown said car thefts are spiking in the city — as they are across Kitsap County and elsewhere. With new limits restricting how officers can pursue suspects, officers had attempted to stop the suspect from fleeing by boxing him in, knowing they could not chase him if drove away.

“It didn’t quite work out the way we wanted,” Brown said. “He was able to get away, but we know who he is and intend to pick him up at a later time.”

Police were called to the Goodwill, 1700 Mile Hill Drive, at about 9:50 a.m. after receiving a call about an occupied stolen car. Three officers responded and attempted to box in the driver.

What followed, as shown in the video, is the suspect repeatedly striking one police car — a statement from the department said the driver actually struck two police cars as well as two other cars in the parking lot, before escaping.

The crimes for which the driver is suspected — third-degree assault, hit and run and possession of a stolen car — do not qualify as offenses for which officers can pursue, Brown said.

Officers can pursue drivers if they have strong evidence that the person committed certain serious violent offenses, but third-degree assault does not count.

“Even that assault is not enough for us to chase him,” Brown said.

Officers from multiple agencies assisted Port Orchard police in tracking the suspect over the course of the next several hours, the department said in a statement.

Brown said the video of the incident was dramatic, but he appreciated that nobody was injured.