Here’s the latest from the streets of the East Precinct. Don’t forget this Thursday night’s EastPac meeting with SPD’s Assistant Chief Sanford in attendance.
- Another incident involving a group entering a Capitol Hill-area business, attempting to distract employees and, the bad part, snatching an electronic device ended with an arrest went down on E Pike last Saturday. Here’s the account provided by a stylist at Emerson Salon of the group attempting the heist, their modus operandi and some details of how the stolen phone was recovered:
I was the only stylist (we have no reception staff and are all self employed) who was able to greet these individuals (all the other stylists were with clients.) The male individual asked about the price of a haircut. Another was a shorter female who asked the price to do hair at Emerson Salon and I fielded their questions as they remarked,” we’re just checkin’ this place out.” I gave the male my business card and my coworker’s business card in regards to hair services. Another male individual entered and attempted to walk upstairs to our laundry and break area. I stopped him by saying,” Excuse me, you can’t go up there. We only allow employees up there.” to which he replied,” I”m just checkin it out.” to which I replied,” We don’t even let clients go up there so we’d appreciate it if you didn’t.”
This individual retreated from the stairs and and by my coworkers station while I watched him closely. I saw he picked “something” up. He moved away from the station and I could tell he was trying to hide his hand as he remarked,”Oh, that’s my phone.”
I observed him moved towards the front area and at that time I saw the phone and the credit card swiper attachment to the phone that is unique ONLY to this coworkers iphone. I said frankly, pointing,”Thats not your phone, its my coworkjers phone.”
He tried to walk away from me and I said again,”Thats not your phone, She has a different swiper! Give me the phone. ” I paused and waited a second then I grabbed his arm. he snatched it away. i grabbed his hand again. I said again,”that’s not your phone. give me the phone!” he moved away. He opened the front door, and my other coworker was outside talking with a client he’d just finished with and saw what was happening. He “bodychecked” this male individual and then the altercation moved to the sidewalk. I tried to grab his arm a THIRD time and apparently I was screaming,”Its not your fucking phone. Give me the fucking phone!!!”
Then the male ran towards broadway running south. I called 911. 3 coworkers went following after him. Cops called 3 min later and they had the guy and the iphone. Apparently, a good samaritan/strong gay man tackled him until the cops could arrest him after he saw one of my coworkers running to catch up with him.
The SPD report on the incident corroborates the stylist’s details. In April, we reported on a similar theft at a massage studio on Broadway.
- : A thief broke into a third-floor business office in the 600 block E Pine sometime in the overnight of Friday May 18th and made off with a safe full of cash and coin. The SPD report on the burglary doesn’t make the amount of cash stolen public but the thief made off with a safe full of coins and bills, police say. The crime is being investigated as a felony level theft meaning at least $5,000 was taken. The burglar left no signs of breaking into the building’s ground floor but police found pry marks on the door to the office.
- A burglar stole thousands of dollars worth of goods in a break-in of the storage lockers at a building in the 500 block of E Howell last week. Police found the locks had been bent or broken on several lockers in the Tuesday night burglary.
- Caretaker chases off man trying to break into empty building: A man living as a caretaker in an empty Harvard Ave E apartment building called police last Saturday afternoon after somebody tried to break into the building. The man told police he has lived in the empty building “for years” and has had “several encounters with trespassers, and transients trying to enter and squat in the building” but typically can handle the situations himself.
