Thieves ransack liquor store in North Hollywood after slamming vehicle into security gate

UNIVERSAL CITY, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Thieves ransacked a liquor store in North Hollywood early Wednesday after slamming a vehicle into a folding metal security gate at the store's front entrance, police and a witness said.

The incident was reported about 4:30 a.m. at Ambrose Liquor on Barham Boulevard, just northeast of the 101 Freeway, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department said.

A witness described the suspects' vehicle as a U-Haul truck.

Todd Hoffman said he heard a "giant bam and I thought about an accident because they speed down the street all day and night -- it's very bad here.

"I look out and I see a truck heading into the liquor store," he said. "They're yelling at each other and I start yelling at them: 'Hey! What are you doing?'"

Hoffman said the thieves carried what looked like an ATM out of the store, turned the truck around, backed it up to the entrance and loaded it with stolen merchandise.

The back of the truck remained open as the suspects drove away, Hoffman said, "so I don't know if stuff fell out of the truck on Barham (Boulevard), causing people to start running over it."

An estimated value of the stolen property was not immediately available.