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# Rich looking women may be targets for robbers
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/rich-looking-women-may-be-targets-for-robbers/
- Published: 2001-11-29T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-22T22:29:10.000Z
- Author: Carolyn Sackariason
- Tags: Crime, Montana, #archive-import

*Montana shoppers on alert*

If you look like you have money, chances are you’ll be noticed.

That’s what happened to a Brentwood woman Monday evening after she walked out of a Montana Avenue boutique and was robbed at gunpoint.

At about 6:30 p.m., a black man, described as 5 foot, 10 inches tall, in his 20s, approached the victim while she was sitting in her car in the Fireside Plaza parking lot behind Peets Coffee and Wild Oats market between 14th and 15th Streets on Montana Avenue.

The suspect shoved a handgun into her stomach and demanded all of her property. The suspect, wearing a black jacket and black pants, fled on foot with an undisclosed amount of jewelry. The woman was reportedly with her two children and their nanny.

A sales representative at the fashion boutique where the victim was shopping said she came in immediately after the robbery and called police.

“It was awful,” she said, asking for her and the store not to be identified. “Police said they may have been following her. Like a gang looking for rich people. They were stalking her.”

Montana Avenue is to Santa Monica what Rodeo Drive is to Beverly Hills — high-end, swanky stores lining the streets with rich shoppers. It’s not really a place where armed robberies occur every day. But now store workers and shoppers must have their guards up.

The parking lot where the robbery occurred is well lit and has parking attendants stationed there until 5 p.m. The boutique staffer said she has asked the property owners to put even more lights in the back of the store, as well as asking the parking attendants to stay longer into the night, as a result of the robbery.

“Women need to dress low key. They see a rich lady with all kinds of jewelry on and nice clothes, they are going to notice her,” the boutique worker said. “They look in the rich places, not the poor places.”

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/112901-04_01.jpg)

The parking lot where the armed robbery occurred Monday. (Photo: Carolyn Sackariason/Daily Press)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 29, 2001.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/112901.pdf?ref=smdp.com)