Some Inglewood residents are on high alert after a string of home burglaries, some of which were captured on home security cameras.
Three separate residents in the same neighborhood described similar crimes, with thieves ringing the doorbell in the middle of the day when no one was home, breaking in and stealing valuables.
One homeowner’s surveillance camera on the 300 block of Buckthorn Street captured two suspects carrying a large object that the resident, Jose Bracamontes, claimed was a heavy safe they stole from his house, along with cash and a registered gun.
“My whole life savings, paperwork, everything is there,” Bracamontes told KTLA. “You trust this community, you trust your neighbors and I mean, the feeling is…I mean, I felt so outraged yesterday, so angry.”
Bracamontes has lived in his Inglewood home for 30 years and said this is the first time it has been burglarized.
The thieves entered his home through an unlocked window at the back of the property and ransacked the house.
“Police was here and they told me, ‘Hey, we’re going to catch them.’ Let’s hope they do that,” he said.
Video from another homeowner, one street over in the 300 block of Magnolia Avenue, showed a man jumping over Maria Soto’s gate last week, after ringing the doorbell.
Soto, who has lived in her home for 35 years, said this has never happened before. She came home in the middle of the day to find her home trashed, along with cash and cherished jewelry that meant a lot to her — gone.
“I have a lot of valuable things from my mother who passed away last year…irreplaceable,” Soto told KTLA.
She also believes the thieves pepper sprayed her dogs.
On Oct. 19, in the 400 block of Buckthorn, resident Freddy Gutierrez’s home was also broken into.
“Two guys, they came and knocked the door. Nobody was home because we were working. They go around the house and break one of the windows and get inside the house and steal a lot of stuff in the house,” Gutierrez told KTLA.
According to Gutierrez, the thieves got away with both his safe and his husband’s.
All three residents have turned over security video to the Inglewood Police Department and estimate that tens of thousands of dollars in valuables were stolen.
KTLA reached out to the police department for comments, but has yet to hear back.
