A wave of home invasion and smash-and-grab robberies across Orange County, many of them carried out by organized crews, have led to criminal charges being filed against more than 140 defendants over the past year, as well as a new effort to pursue hate crime allegations against robbers accused of targeting Asian homeowners, local law enforcement officials announced Wednesday.
Citing a carryover from pandemic-era bail and sentencing guidelines that prosecutors argue have led to less time behind bars for repeat offenders combined with more unoccupied homes as workers have returned to the office, police and prosecutors gathered at the Orange County District Attorney’s headquarters in Santa Ana to outline what they described as a sharp increase in brazen robberies.
To combat the increase in these often-violent robberies, DA Todd Spitzer said, a new unit within the DA’s office comprised of veteran prosecutors and investigators — known as the Home Invasion Eradication Interdiction Strike Team — has teamed up with officers from the Sheriff’s department and the county’s many local police department’s.
“If you are going to come into Orange County to commit smash and grabs, we are going to smash you and we are going to grab you,” Spitzer said. “This nonsense, enough is enough.”
The DA unit is pursing what Spitzer described as an “aggressive legal theory” in order to charge suspected members of one crew alleged to have specifically targeted Asian residents. The robbers, who Spitzer said believed the victims had large amount of money at their homes, have been charged with hate crime enhancements that could lead to longer prison sentences.
Some suspected members of that robbery crew — which is believed to have ties to Riverside and Los Angeles counties and is suspected of carrying out burglaries in Brea, Irvine, Yorba Linda and Orange — also have been charged with kidnapping and are facing potential life sentences.
Sheriff Don Barnes —…
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