These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. Today’s post is somewhat updated from the calendar version.
Detectives told Rose and Kamyar Zarrabi afterward that the man with the hammer had probably been in their store before. Not a random smash-and-grab.
KZ Jewelry Designs is a modest business. “I don’t carry Rolex,” Rose Zarrabi said. “We’re just a small mom and pop place.”
“We” is Rose and her husband, Kamyar. They were both in the store a little before 5 PM on a Tuesday afternoon when a man entered the store — hat, facemask, black get-up, red gloves. Without a word, he raised a ball-peen hammer and started smashing the display cases.
She yelled at him, of course, but it didn’t matter. “When I yelled stop, he looked at me, and bash,” she said, miming a hammer blow. “Like he didn’t care.”
“He would have cleared us out, he definitely would have, if we wouldn’t have done anything,” Rose said. “He was not afraid. It was weird.”
He hadn’t even brought a bag. He went case to case, hugging the jewelry against his chest.
Then Kamyar came out of the back office with the handgun he kept there for protection and put a round into the ceiling.
Warning shots: Just don’t. Check the 2A sources at the end if you want to understand why.
It worked, though. “The guy stopped, dropped everything and took off running,” Rose said. “There was jewelry scattered everywhere and glass.” He went out northbound on foot and left the hammer behind. Kamyar went after him and lost him.
Nobody was hurt. A police sergeant told NBC 7 that he believed her husband “was under duress at that time, and so he did what he felt was necessary to keep his wife safe.”
Two days later, the Zarrabis didn’t want to go back on camera. But the jeweler next door was willing to talk about it — Fred Nasseri, forty-five years on that block.
“Somebody is gonna get hurt along the road,” he said. “At that point, I think people are going to say, ‘Whoa, we have to stop it.’ But before we get there, we have to stop it.”
I can’t be the only person thinking that the consequences for perpetrating acts like this need to be both more common and more immediate.
Sources
News
NBC 7 San Diego got an interview with the Zarrabis. The photos come from the Zarribis’ surveillance video, which they broadcast.
Rancho Bernardo jewelry store owner stops smash-and-grab robbery (The write-up: the video embedded on that page can also be seen below.)
ABC 10 ran two segments: the newswire item, and then Moses Small’s follow-up, which is the one that went to the shopping center to get other reactions. (Moses Small has the most amazing TV/radio voice, by the way.)
Man armed with hammer robs Rancho Bernardo jewelry store, runs away after owner fires gun (City News Service)
Rancho Bernardo store owner fires shot to stop smash-and-grab robbery (Two days later, with Fred Nasseri)
Other coverage included:
Jewelry store owner fires gun during heist in Rancho Bernardo (The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Police investigating smash-and-grab at Rancho Bernardo jewelry store (FOX 5 San Diego / KUSI)
Rancho Bernardo Jewelry Store Robbed by Man with Hammer (Times of San Diego, the same City News Service article as ABC 10)
2A / specialist media
Brandon Curtis wrote it up at Concealed Nation. Jewelry Store Owner Fires Warning Shot Into Ceiling To Scare Off Smash & Grab Robber
Luke McCoy’s piece at USA Carry embeds the NBC 7 video. Jewelry Store Owner Fires Warning Shot During Smash-and-Grab Robbery in Rancho Bernardo
Both men emphasize the issues with warning shots, providing more links if you’re interested.
Aggregator Hoodline also covered this incident. Rancho Bernardo Jewelry Store Hit by Hammer-Wielding Robber, San Diego Police Seek Suspect