From today’s LA Times: Undercover officers are lurking around upscale eateries in the San Fernando Valley, trying to blend into the nighttime pedestrian traffic.

Patrol cars circle around restaurants looking for anything out of place.

And from the air, police helicopters are switching on infrared cameras while checking tips radioed to them from officers on the ground.

It’s all part of a campaign by authorities to stop a group of criminals who for the last two years are believed responsible for more than 50 “takeover” robberies of Valley eateries and taverns….The robbers burst into restaurants with guns drawn, using the shock of a sudden holdup to their advantage.

Witnesses have alternately described the suspects as black, Hispanic or white.

The biggest problem for detectives is that the robbers wear [ski] masks, which have made it impossible to develop descriptions of them.

Gene sez: I spoke to Torrid Entertainment’s, www.torrident.com Keith O’Connor this morning who told me that he was ready to move to Cleveland and for reasons similar to the story in the LA Times. O’Connor had a meeting this morning with performer/director Silvio concerning a deal about running a joint website. They were at the Jamba Juice in the Jerry’s Deli parking lot in Woodland Hills when two men in ski masks walked up to a young Asian girl who was walking to her car.

“This poor little Asian girl absolutely got clobbered,” said O’Connor. “They grabbed her fucking purse then punched her right in the middle of her nose, knocked her out and both of them took off in different directions. Me and Silvio were, like, both, did we really just see that? And here’s the most amazing thing. It’s fucking daylight and there’s a hundred people sitting at the bagel place, walking around and everyone witnessed it. They went running to the girl. The girl jumped up. She went running after them bawling her eyes out. Even Silvio and I ran outside looking for the motherfuckers. And Silvio’s all upset because he’s like you know what? It gives a bad name for black people and two, his wife is white and he was, like, if that ever happened to her.”

O’Connor said you could tell that the robbers were black.

“It was the first thing Silvio said,” according to O’Connor. “It was, just, holy shit.” O’Connor said it was a brazen act right out in the parking lot in front of everybody.

“There were tons of people walking to their cars,” said O’Connor. “It was coordinated because one went one-way. One went towards Ventura and the other towards Topanga. They just ran.”

Not that it has anything to do with the price of a Jamba Juice, but O’Connor said he was also ready to talk on the record after a year and half of silence. He’s agreed to sit down with me and do an interview about all topics- Metro, Defiance and Norman Bentley to Taylor Rain.