Robbery

Three men robbed the Kohl’s at Bella Terra on Monday night while the store was open for business, Huntington Beach police said. The robbery occurred about 8:25 p.m. Monday. One suspect held the door open, while two others with a crowbar and hammer smashed glass display cases and stole jewelry. All three men wore jackets that concealed their faces. No employees or customers were injured during the quick smash-and-grab, police said. The men escaped in a dark green, older-style, small vehicle.

Police are seeking public assistance in identifying a man who robbed a Bank of the West branch on Thursday afternoon. At 3:40 p.m., a man walked into the branch near Goldenwest Street and Warner Avenue, wearing a baseball cap, brown T-shirt with a white T-shirt layered underneath, light jeans and aviator-style sunglasses. The man is described as Asian, from 150 to 160 pounds, 5 foot 7, possibly with a mole on his cheek. He was cleanshaven, with short brown hair. The suspect approached the teller and showed her a note stating that the bank was being robbed.

A man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that he pulled out a machete on a cab driver in Costa Mesa and threw the man’s cell phone down the street during an argument. Phong Van Trong, 48, of West Covina, is in custody in lieu of $100,000 bail after Huntington Beach police arrested him for allegedly hitting a cab driver in the leg with the side of a machete blade, police said. Trong was charged with first degree robbery, assault with a deadly weapon that wasn’t a firearm and damaging a wireless device to prevent a call for assistance from police.

Huntington Beach police are looking for a man who robbed a Huntington Beach bank. Named the Cyclops Bandit by the FBI for his white eye bandage, the suspect is wanted in several other robberies in Costa Mesa, Santa Ana and Encino, authorities said. At 1:14 p.m. Sept. 25, a man wearing a white eye patch over his left eye entered the Citibank at 7552 Edinger Ave. and handed the bank teller a threatening note, police said. The suspect, described as a black man 6-feet tall, 220 pounds, with a heavy build, and wearing a white, short-sleeve dress shirt and gray pants, also threatened to shoot the teller if he didn’t hand over cash, authorities said.

Huntington Beach police are asking for the public’s help in tracking down a suspect in a bank robbery that took place in recent weeks. A man dubbed “The Khaki Bandit” walked into a Citibank near Edinger Avenue and Gothard Street at 12:30 p.m. July 30, then told the teller, “give me all of your money or I will shoot you,” police said. Witnesses did not actually see him holding a weapon, police said. The suspect, wearing a black fanny pack and carrying a black day planner, then fled with the money and drove off, authorities said.

A Huntington Beach man pleaded not guilty to robbery charges Tuesday stemming from a spate of OxyContin thefts at pharmacies throughout Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, officials said. Kevin Matthew Patch, 22, has been charged with three counts of robbery, according to the Orange County district attorney's office. He is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail pending a preliminary hearing July 17. Police allege that Patch is part of a ring dubbed the "Oxy Bandits," believed responsible for stealing large quantities of the drug from pharmacies throughout Southern California.

A Huntington Beach man has admitted to participating in the recent wave of OxyContin robberies throughout Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, police said Thursday. Kevin Matthew Patch, 22, who is being treated at a local hospital under police custody, has not entered a plea in court. Police allege that Patch is part of a ring dubbed the “Oxy Bandits” believed responsible for stealing large quantities of the drug from pharmacies throughout Southern California.

A man charged with the burglary of thousands of dollars of prescription drugs in Lake Forest after being arrested on warrant outside of a Huntington Beach pharmacy pleaded not guilty Tuesday at his arraignment in Newport Beach. Police suspect Brian Dow Fleming, 38, may have been casing the Walgreens at 19001 Brookhurst St. April 5 when a multi-agency task force arrested him following a tip from the public, said Orange County Sheriff's Department spokesman Jim Amormino. He was processed in Huntington Beach and taken to Orange County Jail in Santa Ana. Fleming is "certainly not connected" to robberies of the drug OxyContin reported in the last few months in Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach and Newport Beach, Amormino said.

Police continue their search for a man who robbed a Bella Terra eatery before the store opened and then locked two employees in the back, police said. At 9:30 a.m. Friday, the robber walked into the Daphne's Greek Café at 7801 Center Ave., pulled out a gun and asked the two employees for cash, police said. Witnesses described the suspect as a white man in his mid-40s, wearing sunglasses and some sort of cloth covering the lower half of his face, police said. The suspect has brown hair and a heavy build, weighing approximately 200 pounds, police said.