Three masked gunmen confronted and robbed two families in Sabre Springs and Carmel Mountain early Thursday in crimes apparently connected to similar break-ins in Rancho Bernardo and Sorrento Valley in the past two weeks.

Robbers tied up a father and two sons at their Carmel Mountain home, but no one was harmed in any of the incidents, San Diego police said.

Cash and jewelry was taken from the homes.

“There are too many similarities to discount that they all may be related,” police robbery unit Lt. Todd Griffin told reporters Thursday. He said all the victims were asleep when the thieves entered their homes, and, in the two cases on Thursday, the families were wakened deliberately.


Police said the robbers have been rattling doorknobs and gates at other homes, and are getting in through unlocked doors.

“Where the doors were locked, there was no entry,” Griffin said. “I implore residents, here and all over town — you’ve got to keep your doors locked.”

He said victims in all four home invasions have been able to provide only vague descriptions of the robbers, who were male, of medium size, and wearing dark clothes including bandanna masks, hoodies and gloves.

The first incident on Thursday was reported about 2:45 a.m. at a home on Spring Meadow Lane, off Springbrook Drive in Sabre Springs. Three men, at least one carrying a handgun. ransacked the home and confronted the sleeping residents. The intruders were startled into leaving quickly, and the residents had not been tied up, Griffin said.


A little more than two hours later, apparently the same trio struck a home a few miles away on Breezeway Place, near Seabridge Lane, in Carmel Mountain.

There, Griffin said, a 59-year-old man and his sons, ages 15 and 29, were bound by the robbers. A 2 1/2-year-old child sleeping in another room was not disturbed. The victims were able to free themselves after the thieves left, and they went to a neighbor’s home to call 911 about 5:20 a.m., Griffin said.

He said another home on Breezeway Place may have been broken into early Thursday when the owner was not home. Police and the owner were investigating.

The earlier cases included a robbery on Passernine Way in Sorrento Valley on Jan. 31. Police have released few details on what happened there, citing a crime victim’s privacy law when the crime involves sexual assault, a hate crime, stalking, or sex trafficking. Griffin has not said which of one applied in that case.


The other case occurred on Aliento Court in Rancho Bernardo on Feb. 5. A couple in their 40s were sleeping in separate rooms when the gunman, wearing headlamps, came in and accidentally woke the husband. He and his wife were tied with shoelaces while the robbers ransacked the house. When the couple got free, they called 911 from a neighbor’s home about 3:45 a.m.

Griffin said in those cases, the thieves had apparently not intended to wake and confront the residents, but had expected to slip in and out unnoticed.

On Thursday, police asked residents who live near the locations of the four break-ins and have home surveillance systems to allow the department to view their footage from the past week.

He said the incidents are not related to another that occurred in Scripps Ranch at 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 29. The victims in that crime were specifically targeted. Three gunmen tied up the husband, age 74, and wife, age 69, and threatened to take the husband to an ATM to withdraw cash. An adult daughter who came out of her bedroom startled the robbers into leaving. An adult son was not home at the time.