A brazen daylight theft at Macy’s at the Domain has put jewelry stores across Central Texas on alert.

Two masked thieves walked into the department store about 7:45 p.m. Saturday, smashed a jewelry case and fled with an undisclosed amount of merchandise.

“A lot of times they’ll go from store to store trying to pull off a theft or robbery,” said Bill Koen of Joe Koen and Son Jewelers, which has been open in downtown Austin since 1883.

Koen, a past president of the Texas Jewelers Association, says word of a theft or robbery quickly makes its way to other jewelry stores.

“Austin is, I think, a close-knit jewelry community and getting closer, probably the main reason for that is security,” he said. “It’s something that brings us all together and we all want to help each other out in that area…We want what’s best for everybody, which is to be safe.”

He says many jewelry stores follow suggestions from the Texas Jewelers Association, including:

-- Showing customers only one item at a time,

-- Using security cameras, and

-- Using code words if something doesn’t seem quite right.

Austin police say they’re looking for two thieves. One is described as a Hispanic man, 5’8, and weighing 160 pounds. He was last seen wearing a blue/black baseball cap with a white logo, a warm-up suit with two stripes on it and tennis shoes.

The second man is described as a Hispanic man, about 5’8 inches tall and weighing about 200 pounds. He was last seen wearing a blue/black cap with collar-length hair. He had on a white long-sleeved sweater over a dark shirt, and blue jeans.

Neither man displayed a weapon during the theft.

Anyone with information should call Crimestoppers at 472-TIPS.