Armed woman makes threats at Kardashian-owned boutique near L.A

[September 22, 2017]  By Alex Dobuzinskis

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A woman armed with a handgun pointed it at employees at a boutique owned by reality TV stars the Kardashians in the Los Angeles area on Thursday and later came back brandishing a machete, according to police and media.

The unidentified woman escaped in both instances before police could apprehend her.

"We want to know who she is, we want to get her off the streets," Juanita Navarro of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said by telephone.

The woman entered the boutique in West Hollywood, just outside Los Angeles, shortly before noon shouting "Stay away from Cuba" as she pointed a handgun at an employee, the Sheriff's Department said in a statement.

She knocked items off the counter and pointed the firearm at a second employee and then walked out, it said.

The Sheriff's Department declined to identify the store, but Los Angeles television stations reported it was the DASH boutique. Sisters Kim Kardashian West and Khloé and Kourtney Kardashian, best known from the television program "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and its spin-off shows, own the store, according to the boutique's website.

A Sheriff's Department helicopter took part in the search for the woman but could not find her.

Television reporters arrived at the boutique after the initial threat made against employees and were there to capture the woman on video when she returned, armed with a machete.

"The Kardashians will be executed if they step on Communist territory," the woman shouted while holding up the machete, footage from Los Angeles television station FOX 11 showed.

The Sheriff's Department statement confirmed the agitated woman captured on news footage, who was wearing a jacket with white skulls and a bandana wrapped around her forehead, was the same suspect who had earlier entered the store with the gun.

Video footage shows the woman turning toward a cameraman to ask if he wanted to "get stabbed," before shoving the machete into a gap in the boutique's front entrance and walking away.

Ina Treciokas, a spokeswoman, for Kim Kardashian West, declined to comment on the incident.

The Kardashian sisters and hip-hop star Kanye West, who is married to Kim, visited Cuba last year.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Paul Tait)

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