Police say nine people, including a juvenile, were arrested in connection with a smash-and-grab robbery inside a Fort Worth grocery store. NBC 5’s Sophia Beausoleil reports investigators want to know if they group are tied to similar crimes across North Texas and Houston.
Fort Worth police said nine people, including a 16-year-old, were arrested in connection to a smash-and-grab last Sunday. Detectives from other cities are investigating if the group is connected to similar crimes in Dallas and Houston.
Fort Worth police said four people acted as lookouts, and a driver stayed behind as well, as four others went inside an El Rancho Supermercado at about 5 p.m. on Feb. 9 and pepper sprayed employees and smashed jewelry cases, taking whatever was inside.
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WATCH HERE"Suddenly, we couldn't breathe; we started covering our mouths because we started coughing," said Lourdes Torres, who was inside the store and getting ready to check out.
"It was something really terrible what I witnessed. It was scary," said Torres.
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SIGN UP Cellphone video captured the moment one of the suspects used an object, possibly a tool like a hammer, to smash the display cases and steal jewelry from the jewelry store inside the supermarket.
Fort Worth police said investigators could share information about the group with the Fort Worth Real Time Crime Center (RTCC), which helped police track them down. The police department said its Fort Worth Tactical Intelligence and Operations Surveillance Team (OST) received the information, picked up the case, and observed the group in McKinney.
Fort Worth police said McKinney police officers helped arrest nine people without incident who ranged in age from 16 to 51. The names of those arrested are below.
- Dexter Mitchell, 51
- Dexter Mitchell Jr., 36
- Reginald Mitchell, 22
- Christian Venson, 25
- Daniya Smith, 17
- Vanessa Thompson, 23
- Shonton Howard, 26
- Lester Emerson, 36
- Juvenile, 16
Fort Worth police said detectives recovered a large amount of jewelry worth an estimated $100,000.
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Officers said they're aware of similar smash-and-grab crimes in Dallas and Houston, but on Thursday, said they didn't have a definitive connection.
“The police haven't come out and confirmed it yet, but we're pretty confident that it's them just looking at the videos and the standstill image," said Angel Cuenca, whose family store inside an El Rancho in East Dallas was targeted last December.
Cuenca was working at their store, Joyeria Princesa, inside the El Rancho when he said four guys approached their display cases. He said one of the men with a sledgehammer began smashing the glass cases and removing multiple trays of gold jewelry from the shattered display.
More than $600,000 worth of jewelry was stolen, said Cuenca.
“Unfortunately, our second store ended up getting hit a couple of weeks ago. I didn't really release much information on it just because I wanted to let the police catch up and do their work," said Cuenca.
He said the employee at the Fort Worth store is his uncle. Even though he's waiting on police to confirm, he believes the suspects in the Fort Worth case are tied to his two stores and is glad they are in custody.
“It's definitely a little bit of relief, but unfortunately, it's just not the same anymore; we're just always on high alert," said Cuenca.
Ed Gonzalez, the Harris County Sheriff in Houston, posted to X on Saturday that he believes at least four of the suspects arrested in McKinney are tied to smash and grabs in the Houston area.
"This crew is suspected in carrying out similar crimes in the Dallas area, as well as others in the greater Houston/Harris County area. We hope these offenders get prosecuted to the fullest extent," said Gonzalez in his post on X.
Cuenca said he also hoped the grocery stores get more security.
"I think one of the reasons these guys were going after all the El Ranchos is because they knew that vulnerability; they knew that that was an ultimate weakness in their infrastructure," said Cuenca.
