Robbery shatters ‘paradise’

Mathis Winkler

FASHION ISLAND -- It almost happened too fast to remember. One minute,

she was strolling around Fashion Island with a friend, two kids she was

baby-sitting and a dog in tow.

Then, about 7:25 p.m. Tuesday, the 18-year-old woman and her small

group found themselves trapped between the glass doors to Traditional

Jewelers and three masked gunmen preparing to attack. Because the gunmen

remain at large, her family requested her identity not be revealed.

“All of a sudden, I heard a commotion and saw all these guys with guns

pointed at us,” the woman said Wednesday, adding that she had barely

slept all night. “They started screaming, ‘Everybody move!’. . . When

they started shooting, that’s when we ran.

“I thought I was going to die.”

A shop assistant in one of the mall’s stores, the woman was still

shaken by the violent shootout that left a jewelry store security guard

critically wounded by one of the attackers.

“I’m scared to go back,” she said, adding that a friend was going to

accompany her to her evening shift Wednesday. “I don’t want to go back to

Fashion Island.”

Police officials did not release the identity of the guard Wednesday,

but said he was in stable and guarded condition, adding that the wounds

were not life-threatening.

At the mall early Wednesday, wooden panels covering the jewelry

store’s entrance and a sign announcing a delayed opening time were the

only reminders of the attack.

Waiting for the store to reopen just before noon to get a watch

repaired, Corona del Mar resident Michelle Govel said she wasn’t too

worried about her safety.

“I’m a little apprehensive,” she said. “But I don’t think they’ll

strike twice in two days.”

But “things are definitely getting worse,” Govel said. “It’s just a

matter of time before crime hits Fashion Island. It’s the shape of things

to come.”

Still, the incident won’t deter her from shopping at the mall, Govel

said.

“I live here,” she said. “So yeah, I will [come back]. Just like

people in barrios or ghettos still go to their [shopping] places where

they live.”

After briefly entering the store, Govel was led outside again by a

shop assistant, who told her the opening had been further delayed.

“I’m sure everybody’s walking on egg shells in there today anyway,”

Govel said before walking off.

Traditional Jewelers, which employs its own security guards to protect

its million-dollar merchandise, finally opened about 1 p.m. Store

officials declined to comment on the shooting.

Others who work at the mall said the jewelry store was clearly the

prime target for robbers at Fashion Island.

“We’re not really scared that something like that would happen to our

store,” said Lindsey Andersen, who works as an assistant manager at The

Museum Shop. “Traditional Jewelers . . . seems to be the hot spot of

crime for the whole mall.”

Andersen, who hid in the back of her store with two other employees

and a customer during the attack, said that unlike the city’s police

officers, Fashion Island’s own security guards seemed ill-equipped to

handle such problems.

“There are guards around, but they are mostly college kids with

badges,” she said, adding that robbers had stolen about $3,000 worth of

jewelry from her shop’s show cases a year ago.

“If things have happened, [the guards] are slow to respond,” Andersen

said. “They basically say, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.”’

Mall officials said several of Fashion Island’s security guards are

retired police officers and added that guards had an average working

experience of 10 years in the security field.

While saying that security officers have monthly training meetings and

work closely with the city’s Police Department, mall officials said they

didn’t want to divulge information about security strategies.

“We don’t want to give a road map to everybody of how it’s organized,”

said Rich Elbaum, a spokesman for the Irvine Co., which owns Fashion

Island.

Employees in charge of the booths in the square outside of the jewelry

store set things up as usual, and children rode the circular train a few

steps away from the scene of the crime.

“I thought I’d have nightmares, but I guess I slept OK,” said Elliott,

who sells popcorn and asked not to reveal his last name for fear of the

attackers. “Although I was shaking all the way to going to sleep.”

Wearing Zebra-striped sunglasses, Elliott said he hid behind his cart

when the shooting started and jumped into nearby bushes outside

Robinsons-May when the shots continued.

Caroline, who works at a booth selling sunglasses and also asked that

her last name not be used, said she slid out of her chair and hid behind

the cart when she heard the shots.

“I was screaming,” she said. “I thought I was going to see people

lying dead on the ground.”

Shoppers said the shooting had brought a bit of reality to the upscale

shopping mall, which usually appears as a safe haven from crime.

“You hear that music, you see these luxurious chairs,” said Costa Mesa

resident Claudine Hastings.

Together with her daughter, Cybille Scott, and her 5-month-old

grandson, Alexander, Hastings was sitting on one of the wooden arm chairs

with cushy white pillows in the mall’s Atrium Court, where Koi wound

their way through a shallow pool and soft saxophone jazz played over

loudspeakers.

“It’s like paradise,” Hastings said. “And yesterday people could have

been killed. It’s not paradise after all.”