A jewelry store guard thwarted a robbery at Fashion Valley Mall Saturday night by firing a round at the five masked men who entered the store with guns, San Diego police said.

Shoppers screamed and scrambled for cover, and some stores locked down as the men ran out of Royal Maui Jewelers. Officers caught two suspects on state Route 163 at Interstate 8, prompting a 90-minute shutdown of both freeways and causing giant traffic jams.

The other three men escaped, and a getaway driver may have left without them, police said. Nothing was stolen from the store.

The security guard’s round struck the frame of a display window at the Coach store across from the jewelry shop. It hit about a foot above the ground, and shattered into fragments. The guard found a would-be robber’s handgun outside the store, police said.


Police got a 911 call about the attempted robbery at 8 p.m. Royal Maui Jewelers is on the ground floor, near the center of the mall and next to the Apple store.

James Bauer, a salesman at an NYS Collection sunglasses kiosk, said he saw five black men, dressed in black and with faces covered, walk into the mall carrying duffel bags. They headed toward the jewelers and seconds later he heard what sounded like an explosion.

“Everyone went running and screaming that way,” said Bauer, pointing west, away from Royal Maui. “The men ran out, and they ran the same way they had come in.”

Juan Valdez, at the mall with his wife and two sons, said he was on an upper walkway when he heard the shot.


“I saw the guard come out of the store. He was running, and he stopped 10 or 15 feet from the store and picked up a gun on the ground,” Valdez said. His wife said three of the masked men ran out of the mall toward the south and the others ran west.

“The security guard noticed it was going to be a robbery,” police Lt. Jason Weeden said. “He fired one round. They immediately made a U-turn and left. They ran out, possibly toward a getaway vehicle but there was no vehicle there.”

A customer at Banana Republic said some people rushed inside saying that shots had been fired. An employee locked the door and customers stayed near the back of the store. The Apple store also locked down, a customer said.

Minutes later, motorists started calling 911 to tell the California Highway Patrol that four or five men were running across Route 163.


A police sergeant driving toward the mall saw the men on the freeway. He stopped and got one man in custody at gunpoint while radioing for other officers to block traffic. He said a second man ran westbound toward I-8.

The CHP soon had traffic blocked in all directions of the two freeways. A police helicopter crew directed officers to a patch of bushes where the second suspect was hiding. He didn’t come out when police used public address systems to call to him, so a police dog was let loose, Weeden said.

The dog bit the man and he was taken into custody at 8:35 p.m. He was taken to a hospital for treatment, Weeden said.

Route 163 south toward Friars Road quickly backed up for miles, with a similar scene on the other freeway directions. Weeden said a woman was in labor on the freeway jam north of Friars Road and an ambulance was sent to get her to the hospital.


Police thought they had a third suspect cornered at one point, but did not make any more arrests. Weeden said some homeless people came out from the San Diego River area while police were searching and the helicopter crew broadcast announcements.

By about 8:45 p.m., many shoppers were strolling through the mall unconcerned about the police activity and some said they hadn’t heard about the robbery. Police used yellow crime scene tape to block the walkway from the front of Royal Maui Jewelers to the Coach Store.

All freeways were re-opened by about 9:30 p.m.