A series of daring daytime robberies in Los Angeles, in which gang members loaded up an armored truck at gunpoint and fled with millions of dollars, played out like something out of a Hollywood movie, but recently police was cracked down by.
Over the past two years, these sophisticated, lightning-fast robberies have occurred across the city, with thieves wearing ski masks and brandishing AR-15 assault weapons, picking up or dropping off bags of cash at banks and fast-food restaurants. We targeted delivery vehicles. , markets, credit unions.
When the time came to attack, the so-called Chesapeake Bandits (now connected to the Crips and Black P. Stone gangs) held the guards at gunpoint, forced them to the ground, tied them up with zip ties, and robbed them of their bills from armored soldiers. was robbed. Drive away the vehicle before fleeing within seconds.
The Los Angeles Police Department and FBI, which jointly investigated the crime, now believe the group got its nickname after planning a robbery from a home on Chesapeake Avenue in Los Angeles’ West Adams neighborhood. Los Angeles Times report.
Donald Allway, the FBI’s deputy director in charge of the Los Angeles office, said criminals use multiple vehicles and personnel to monitor the target location before committing a precision robbery.
The group also included a driver who was in the car during the robbery.
“The defendant and other co-conspirators in this case are heavily armed and pointing their weapons at the victims,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said at a news conference at the FBI’s Los Angeles headquarters in Westwood last month. He said both incidents involved security guards. .
According to court records, several of the suspects met while serving time in state prison.
Last year, federal prosecutors indicted two of the main suspects in the robbery, half-brothers Deneves Hobson, 36, and James Russell Davis, 34.
Davis is a member of the West Boulevard Crips and Hobson is affiliated with the Black P. Stones, according to a search warrant affidavit.
But the group’s signature crimes continued even while the suspected ringleaders were in prison. Another suspect was later found dead under suspicious circumstances, and a fourth was killed by police while fleeing the attack.
The crew is believed to have first attacked the driver of an armored car in February 2022, when three members approached the driver of an armored vehicle who was collecting cash from Wescom Credit Union in Hawthorn. He pushed the guard to the ground at gunpoint, FBI Special Agent Elizabeth Cardenas wrote in his affidavit.
They removed bags containing cash, checks and the victim’s weapon from their holsters and fled in a white Honda Accord with $166,640, according to court records obtained by the newspaper.
But that was just the beginning.
According to the affidavit, over the next year, the crews attacked drivers in armored vehicles outside a Bank of America branch in Inglewood, a 99 Cents Only store on Crenshaw Boulevard, and a check-cashing store at the intersection of La Brea Street and Adams Boulevard. It is said that he was detained. .
In June 2023, a Brinks armored vehicle pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot at the intersection of Florence Street and Crenshaw Boulevard.
When he returned with the money, a man wearing a white jumpsuit got out of a white Lexus SUV carrying a rifle, Los Angeles Police Department Robbery-Homicide Detective Emily Delph said in a search warrant affidavit. writing.
The man pushed the worker to the ground and took the money, while the other suspect inside the truck pointed a rifle at the driver. “Let’s go!” yelled the Lexus driver. “Quickly!”
Less than three weeks later, the robbers captured another Brinks driver. This time it was Taco Bell.
One of the suspects, wearing a white painter’s suit, trained the driver on an AR-15, handed the keys to one of his accomplices, and drove off in the truck, which was later found abandoned. It was done.
In the last robbery associated with the group, a Brinks driver was robbed while making a deposit at an ATM in South Los Angeles on the morning of October 16th.
Delph investigators also linked Mr. Hobson and Mr. Davis to Jadee Lee Young Jr., 30, a member of the West Boulevard Crips. He was serving 12 years for assault and was contacted by two people during the robbery.
In the search warrant affidavit, Delph listed phone records showing Young was near the scene of the robbery when it occurred.
But before he could be arrested, Young’s body with a gunshot wound to the head was found on the side of a road in Inglewood on December 20 last year. His death is being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department.
Delph said in an affidavit that during the robbery, Young was communicating with another person using a number registered to Zeff Rocco, an East Coast Crip who served time for car burglary. He said he did.
Investigators found further evidence linking him to the robbery, and on March 21 of this year, a SWAT team converged on an apartment building on Reseda Boulevard. To search and issue arrest warrants for suspects;.
“Zev Rocco, this is the Los Angeles Police Department!” the officer yelled, according to body camera footage released last week.
“Come out with your hands up and surrender immediately!”
Los Angeles police said they contacted the suspect by phone and instructed him to come outside and turn himself in.
Shortly after, Rocco jumped from the third floor apartment building with an assault rifle. Surveillance camera footage showed the man momentarily dropping the gun and reaching for his hand as he tried to flee. Police repeatedly warned him to “leave him alone” before shooting him.
According to the Los Angeles Police Department, the rifle Rocco was carrying was a semi-automatic ghost gun.
Later that day, detectives arrested 33-year-old Dysack Jones after his DNA was found on a glove left inside a getaway car used in one of the robberies, according to Delph’s affidavit. I was arrested.
He pleaded not guilty to two counts of robbery and was released on $150,000 bail.
Davis pled guilty to robbery and gun charges in February and admitted to acting as a lookout for Wescom Credit Union, the Los Angeles Times reported.
When he is sentenced in June, he faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. Hobson has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to stand trial in September.
