A gang of armed thugs rammed an eight-tonne truck into a Smethwick jeweller and injured a heroic police officer.<\/p>\n
Police are still hunting the armed gang behind the terrifying raid that took place on Friday 9 March.<\/p>\n
The thieves ploughed their white Iveco flat-bed lorry into the front of Jai Jewellers in Cape Hill.<\/p>\n
Motorists and onlookers outside the shop watched as the masked gang used the lorry to smash a hole into front of the shop.<\/p>\n
They threatened staff, who then hid fearing for their safety.<\/p>\n
The men filled gold into bags and managed to escape into a waiting black Audi saloon car.<\/p>\n
A footage is captured the moment a brave, lone police officer ran into view to stop the thugs escaping in their getaway vehicle.<\/p>\n
He can be seen attacking the windows of the car with a baton – smashing the windscreen and side windows before he is pushed away.<\/p>\n
The robbers then launch projectiles at the officer and throw a brick through the windscreen of the police patrol car.<\/p>\n
The gang sped away onto Claremont Road, leaving the mangled truck abandoned in the store.<\/p>\n
Police later confirmed one officer was treated for minor facial injuries following the raid.<\/p>\n
He continues to recover at home.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Richard Youds, from Sandwell Neighbourhood Policing Unit, said: “The behaviour of these men showed that they were prepared to use considerable violence. including attacking a police officer and a parked car.<\/p>\n
“Thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt and the officer is today recovering at home from his injuries having been treated in hospital.<\/p>\n
“We know that there were a large number of people in the area at the time this took place and are appealing for anyone with information about this incident to come forward.<\/p>\n
“You can contact West Midlands Police on 101, giving crime reference 20SW\/54603T\/18 or alternatively, call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A gang of armed thugs rammed an eight-tonne truck into a Smethwick jeweller and injured a heroic police officer. Police are still hunting the armed gang behind the terrifying raid that took place on Friday 9 March. The thieves ploughed their white Iveco flat-bed lorry into the front of Jai Jewellers in Cape Hill. Motorists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,37,3,112],"tags":[890,891,892],"class_list":["post-25987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-local-news","category-news","category-top-stories","tag-jewellers","tag-raided","tag-smethwick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}