Macy’s Valley Fair shoppers thwart Rolex watch thieves during strong arm robbery

SAN JOSE – Two Macy’s shoppers at Westfield Valley Fair rushed in to try to stop a trio of thieves who broke a glass case filled with Rolex watches Sunday, with one shopper wrestling a suspect and the other grabbing a thief’s backpack after he took a swing at a woman.

“He pissed me off. He tried to punch the lady. And it’s like, no, you just don’t do that,” Rod Simpson, 65, told the Mercury News within minutes of the heist.

After what San Jose Police officials called a “strong arm robbery,” the three suspects, wearing black ski masks and hoodies, escaped in a red car, taking some of the loot with them, witnesses said.

The smash-and-grab comes six weeks after a Black Friday shooting inside the mall, where three shoppers, including two women, were injured allegedly by a 17-year-old gang member targeting a 28-year-old he perceived as a gang rival. A preliminary hearing is planned Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court for three suspected adult accomplices, including the shooting suspect’s older brother.

On Sunday, San Jose Police were on the scene at Macy’s within minutes, but the thieves had already fled. Officers interviewing witnesses in Macy’s declined to comment as did store employees. Next to the broken case, glass covered the travertine floor where a gold watch glimmered from the open black backpack that Simpson had retrieved.

The robbery occurred at about 1 p.m. Sunday in the first floor’s fine jewelry department during a busy post-Christmas shopping day at the major retailer.

In an exclusive interview with the Mercury News, Simpson of San Jose, who said he works in a dental office, described how he arrived at the mall Sunday to do “some regular shopping” when he heard the commotion nearby. Shoppers were running past him, he said. Some were shouting.

Just up ahead, he watched one of the thieves smash the glass case with a sledgehammer. Then another male shopper, he said, intervened and started to wrestle with one of them. That shopper, who had been standing at the Fossil watch counter, declined to be interviewed.

Simpson said that all three suspects fled towards the door to the parking garage, running past him. On the way, however, near the customer service counter and across from the new Starbucks bar, a woman Simpson believes was a Macy’s employee grabbed for one of the suspect’s backpacks.

The store worker “got just a little bit of it. He tried to punch her,” Simpson said. “He missed her. That’s when she jumped back and that gave me an opportunity to jump in.”

Simpson was able to grab the black backpack himself, he said, and “get away from” the suspect.

The suspect fell to the floor, got up and ran away, he said.

“This is crazy, people doing this,” Simpson said.

After the adrenaline-rushing ordeal, he said,  “I’m not too bad. I’m fine.”

Then, in his blue plaid shirt and zip-up jacket, he wandered out into the mall.

“I gotta go back to my regular shopping,” he said.