LENNOX : Police Boost Patrols After String of Home Robberies

A recent string of home-invasion robberies in which a pair of armed masked men sneak through windows or barge through front doors has sheriff’s deputies in Lennox boosting patrols and urging victimized residents to come forward and report the crimes.

Five such attacks have occurred in Lennox, an unincorporated community near Los Angeles International Airport, since April 28. Deputies say the suspects enter homes when the occupants are sleeping. They brandish guns and force the occupants to lie on the floor. The men ransack the homes, taking cash, jewelry and other merchandise. No injuries have been reported.

All victims, like the suspects, are Latino. Police believe the robbers, who they said threaten the victims in Spanish, are capitalizing on some undocumented Latinos’ fears of calling police and the possibility that undocumented people are more likely to keep cash in their homes.

“I think they know that many of them don’t bank, so money, usually cash, is somewhere in the house,� said Detective Duane Decker.

Decker said the men flee in their victims’ automobiles. In one case, when a family did not own a car, the men carjacked someone on the street. Decker said more robberies are believed to have been committed but many victims were not coming forward because of threats from the robbers or fear that deputies would report them to immigration authorities.

Decker said that fear is groundless. “There is no way that you can get deported for reporting a robbery,� he said.