Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station officials have identified at least one member of a “generational gang” in Newhall as suspects in the armed robbery of a Quartz Hill smoke shop, according to investigative records obtained by The Signal.
On Sept. 13, five men wearing masks and “holding firearms” entered the store and stole a safe containing $500 and miscellaneous tobacco products, and then the purse of a store employee who had her Glock 17 firearm inside, according to court documents.
Two days after the report was taken from the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station, a deputy with the SCV’s Juvenile and Gang Team was alerted to the investigation and reviewed security footage from the store.
JAG detectives immediately recognized one person in the footage, according to an affidavit, as he was unmasked and holding the door open so the masked suspects could enter quickly and commit the robbery.
The teenager was known by his moniker to investigators who later obtained a search warrant for his phone, which contained a picture of all the unmasked suspects two hours prior to the robbery wearing the same clothes seen in the security footage, according to the search warrant.
The 17-year-old was arrested by local deputies who then served a search warrant Dec. 11 on his Pine Street home in an attempt to find stolen property as well as potential evidence of gang affiliation or activity, according to the search warrant.
The L.A. County District Attorney’s Office was not immediately available Wednesday to respond to a request for information on the status of any charges facing the suspect.
SCV deputies’ efforts have targeted the local gang for years, including a springtime raid that led to several arrests.
Detectives from the JAG team have not responded to multiple attempts to discuss the status of that investigation or whether any charges have been filed from the eight individuals arrested in April or the evidence seized. Five of those suspects were under the age of 18.
Court records obtained by The Signal over the past two years have recorded a marked increase in the violence since a broad-daylight double-murder by a community pool at The Villages apartment off Valle Del Oro.
The trial for those murders is scheduled to happen in January.
