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Exclusive: Armed Robbers Hit Palisades Home During Holiday Party

PACIFIC PALISADES (CBSLA) - After nearly two years of pandemic restrictions, a family's party was supposed to be an opportunity to share holiday joy, but after partygoers were robbed at gunpoint inside their home, the Westside residents are dealing with the trauma of being  part of a growing statistic.

"I'm feeling disturbed, violated that people were in our house with guns," said the Pacific Palisades homeowner who did not want to give her name or show her face on camera.

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Dec. 4, 2021

Security cameras recorded two men walking down the side of her home Saturday, while the holiday party was underway. Moments later, the two men can be seen doubling back. A second camera then captured the two suspects coming out of the walkway and entering the front gate.

Once they were inside, the men encountered two party guests.

"Threatened them and said, 'You need to give me your wallet, iPhone. One of them was wearing an iwatch and their jewelry," the homeowner said.

The party itself was in the backyard with several dozen guests, but the robbery occurred inside, when two guests had gone inside to grab something out of their purses.

"It happened in our family room," the homeowner told CBSLA, "and it disgusts me because that's the place where we spend a lot of time."

Last month, a security camera captured three people being robbed at gunpoint and beaten in Hancock Park by crooks who impersonated police officers during a follow-home robbery.

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Days before that, a man entered a home where an engagement party was underway and he left with money.

The Los Angeles Police Department said it's investigating more than 100 of these types of robberies in recent months.

"It's happening all over the city," Steven Bardack, a friend of the Pacific Palisades victim, said.

Bardack and other neighbors want laws stiffened against armed robberies.

"The idea of a no bail or low bail environment only emboldens and perpetuates a systemic problem. It's getting worse and it's rapidly, rapidly deteriorating," he said.

In the wake of the robbery, the homeowners said there's been added frustrations too.

They'd like to provide detectives with their security video, but the LAPD's website doesn't work, and the homeowners are pleading for help.

"No communications. He can't get a hold of them. No one has reached out to us, and we were told they would reach out to us," the homeowner said of the family's struggle to get police involved.

LAPD confirmed to CBSLA that there was an incident at the Palisades home, but would not provide any additional information.

The victims said that no one was physically harmed, but they're concerned that things may get worse if these type of crimes continue.

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