SEATTLE — Around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, a salesman was jumped at a Northgate Mall parking lot, just north of the Red Robin restaurant.
Police said the salesman was out of town and had just gotten out of his car with cases of jewelry.
“When a vehicle described as a silver or blue-colored, newer van pulled up next to him, three to four masked men got out of the vehicle, they were all armed with icepicks,” Renee Witt of the Seattle Police Department said
According to police, the robbers threatened the salesman, stole his cases of jewelry and used the ice picks to puncture his tires.
No one was hurt during this robbery.
Surveillance cameras captured another jewelry robbery in March, when a dark brown van pulled up to a traveling salesman’s car on Mercer Island.
The robbers smashed the windows of the vehicles and stole $500 million-worth of jewelry.
Richard Benjamin, a witness, told KIRO 7 the salesman was visibly shaken and stunned.
In December, two jewelry salesmen were robbed at gunpoint after they parked their car at Kitsap Mall.
The Northgate robbery happened in view of surveillance cameras, which detectives will review for clues to the robbers.
In both the Northgate and Kitsap Mall incidents, the robbers are described as possibly Hispanic so detectives are looking into a possible connection.
“They are not ruling out those robberies out. Of course, they are going to investigate all possible leads,” said Witt.
KIRO
