Four masked suspects stormed a jewelry store on the 700 block of Indian Hill Boulevard in Pomona around 3:30 p.m. Sunday, and gunfire broke out before they fled empty-handed. Someone working inside the store fired a shotgun, and one of the masked individuals appeared to return fire with a handgun. No one was hurt, and nothing was taken from the store.
Pomona Police Lieutenant Iain Miller confirmed the sequence of events, saying the four suspects entered wearing ski masks before the gunfire was exchanged and they ran off, according to the Daily Bulletin. Miller said the suspects remained at large as of the newspaper's report, and it was not immediately clear whether the person who fired the shotgun was the store's owner or an employee.
What California Law Says About Armed Store Workers
The shotgun in the shop was not unusual from a legal standpoint. Business owners and employees in California may lawfully keep a loaded firearm on their own commercial property without a concealed carry permit, as long as the property owner or employer allows it, according to the Shouse Law Group. Drawing or firing that weapon is a separate legal question, governed by California's self-defense statutes.
Under Penal Code Section 197, deadly force can be legally justified when someone is resisting an attempted violent felony such as a robbery, though the law draws a hard line against using deadly force to protect property alone unless there's an imminent threat of death or great bodily injury, per FindLaw. Separately, Penal Code Section 417 generally makes it illegal to display or draw a firearm in a rude, angry, or threatening manner unless it's done in reasonable, necessary self-defense against an imminent threat.
Part of a Bigger Pattern in Jewelry Store Robberies
The Pomona incident fits into a broader and troubling shift in how jewelry stores are being targeted nationwide. The Jewelers' Security Alliance's 2025 Annual Crime Report found that while total crimes against U.S. jewelry businesses actually dropped 13.2 percent to 1,233 incidents last year, the share of on-premises robberies involving violence — guns, mace, or vehicle rammings — jumped to 27.1 percent of all incidents, up from 16.9 percent the year before, according to JCK. Financial losses from those crimes climbed to $144.7 million in 2025, a rise tied in part to soaring gold prices that make stolen gold easier to fence than diamonds, sometimes yielding up to 80 cents on the dollar, per National Jeweler.
Armed employees stopping these attempts isn't unheard of elsewhere in the state. In March 2026, an armed employee at a jewelry store in Sunnyvale drew a gun on suspects who tried to smash through the business with a stolen vehicle, and the robbers fled without taking anything, according to the Jewelers' Security Alliance. California has also poured resources into fighting organized retail crime more broadly, allocating $242.25 million in grant funding through its Organized Retail Theft Prevention Grant Program to help local police combat theft syndicates and smash-and-grab operations statewide, per Safe and Sound Security.
A Corridor With a History of Violence
Indian Hill Boulevard has seen violent crime before. In March 2025, Pomona police investigated a fatal shooting in the 1600 block of the same street after a 31-year-old man was found shot multiple times in front of a local store. And in 2017, Pomona police searched for an armed suspect who robbed K & K Liquor in the 600 block of Indian Hill Boulevard at gunpoint before fleeing on foot, just a block from where Sunday's confrontation took place.
Nearby, Claremont police arrested a 30-year-old suspect in January 2025 in connection with multiple burglaries along the 700 block of South Indian Hill Boulevard, close to the Pomona municipal boundary. It remains unclear whether Sunday's four masked suspects are connected to any prior activity along the corridor, and Pomona police have not said whether they believe the group is tied to an organized retail crime operation. Investigators have not indicated whether surveillance footage or ballistics evidence has led to any suspect identification.
