Orinda is a quaint town. It’s not often that a suburban town in the California hills sees large heists and criminal activity running through mainstreet, but Orinda has been undergoing an abnormal surge in crime. Carjacking and robbery have been in the Orinda area for a long time, and residents have become aware of its dangers. But a small town like Orinda doesn’t have heists or big crimes. Orinda isn’t the kind of town to suffer a bank robbery leading to stolen jewelry in the six figures. But this trend suddenly broke in March. Is this just an outlier in Lamorinda’s generally low crime rate, or could it be part of a larger trend showing crime on the rise around the Orinda area?
Recently, crime has been on the rise in Orinda. In September of 2024, a road rage incident left an Orinda resident dead after punching a 72-year-old man, who shot him in self-defense. Road rages are not an uncommon thing in Orinda, but one ending in a loss of life is far rarer.
In recent months, the number of smaller crimes in Orinda has gone up. Residents, for example, have reported a greater number of car robberies. According to an article posted on Niche, Orinda has a significantly lower number of crimes per year compared to the rest of the US. The national average for thefts per year comes out to around 2,042, while Orinda only experiences an estimated 560 incidents per year. Car robberies are the main culprit, and while they have been an issue in Orinda for some time, the recent surge only proves this all the more. This rise is an anomaly for Orinda’s often low crime statistics and is very out of character for a generally careful and safe community.
However, the recent climb in crime has been accompanied by not only small incidents, but sadly also a big one. Orinda rarely ever experiences a high-scale robbery. Most counts are on petty theft from cars or homes, but in March of 2025, disaster struck a local Orinda store in the middle of the day..
In the early days of March, the antique shop “The Hilton House Consignments”, located across from the Orinda library, was robbed by a group of 5 robbers. The intruders quickly entered the store, wearing black hoodies and masks. They then began pepper-spraying customers who were examining items in the front portion of the store and an employee named Rita. “I was showing a nice customer a rug by the front door, and they sprayed me with pepper spray,” Rita said.
The robbers then directed the customers outside of the store so they wouldn’t interfere with the clientele. Seeing the robbers pepper spray customers, an employee behind the counter hit a panic button, which alerted the Orinda Police Department that a robbery was unfolding. Four of the five thieves pulled out hammers and began to smash open glass cases and swipe different valuables and jewelry from the store. One thief held open the main door to direct customers outside and looked to see if the police were coming. After about 30 seconds of looting, the thieves filed out of the store and made their daring escape. With the police station being just across the street, the police response was relatively fast, but the town farmers market, located on the main street between the station and store, slightly delayed their response. By the time police arrived on the scene, the robbers had already left.
“We’ve been in business for 25 years and never had this happen before,” the owner of the Hilton House Consignments Cindy Hilton said. After analyzing the scene, police looked at the store’s CCTV footage in an attempt to identify the robbers. Eyewitnesses also told police they saw the robbers get into a grey SUV, which police found to have a stolen license plate. Witnesses said the car went on Highway 24 westbound towards the Caldecott tunnel leading to San Francisco, but police didn’t attempt a chase.
According to popular news outlet Kron4, the thieves did over $20,000 worth of damage to Hilton House Consignments. For the jewelry and valuables they stole, the police have estimated that the thieves stole upward of $100,000. The store owner and the employees have been mentally recovering from the robbery, and the store has been back in business for some time now. Citizens of Orinda have also been kind enough to start a GoFundMe, which has raised around $3,000 to help cover some of what insurance couldn’t.
The rise in crime has been a strange outlier compared to the past years of crime across the United States as a whole. While COVID-19 caused quarantine across the U.S., the Council On Criminal Justice (CCJ) saw an increase in the number of violent crimes. In a report posted by the CCJ looking into the rise in crime in COVID years, homicides increased from 4 out of 100,000 people to 5.5 out of 100,000 people. While this difference may not seem like much, this turns out to be over 5,100 more homicide cases per year. This is a large jump from standards and likely occurred due to increased paranoia, stress, and unemployment, among various other factors.
Following the COVID years, crime went on a steady decline. In another report by the CCJ, they reported 319 fewer homicide cases in the 1st half of 2024 as compared to 2023, and the trend continues to run down. But why is Orinda’s crime not following a similar trend? Orinda’s crime is by no means high in comparison to major cities, but recent violent crimes have been worrying. There is no way for us to predict how crime will evolve in Orinda, but regardless, we remain a safe community thanks to the efforts of the Orinda Police Department.
