The three men who vandalized and tried to rob a jewelry store are still on the loose. One of those men also attacked the store owner. Their crime was caught on tape.
The men tried to steal gold necklaces and diamond rings from Sonia Jewelry at the Fulton Mall in Downtown Fresno Wednesday morning.
"Oh yeah, it's terrible," said Sonia Kim, the store's owner. For 10 years Kim has run Sonia Jewelry at the Fulton Mall.
And in that decade, she's tried to prepare herself for the unthinkable. It happened when three masked men quickly walked into her shop.
In the security footage you see the men take out hammers and begin their attempt to break the glass. "It's like 10 or 20 seconds, but for me it's like a long time," Kim said.
In a split second, Kim ducked behind her desk and triggered an alarm. That angered one of the men. "They threw a big hammer at me," Kim said. Fortunately, the hammer missed Kim. It left a mark on her desk, though.
An employee at a neighboring store who didn't want to be identified said she heard the hammers hit the glass and called her boss.
"I said they're stealing, he run out from the back door to the alley... he kinda scared them, I think," the employee said.
The jewelry cases are made with laminated glass, so they didn't break and the suspects got away empty handed.
"I wish this never happened," Kim said.
Kim also said the would-be thieves smashed the cases containing her most expensive jewelry. She thinks they had been in the store before.
Fresno Police are investigating the incident.
