Crime Report: Three La Cañada homes hit in one night by burglars smashing second-floor glass doors
April 19
Burglary, residential: 600 block of Foxwood Road. A friend of the property owner, who was out of town for an extended period, reported receiving notice of an audible alarm there at about 9:30 p.m. April 19. The man making the report said he had been at the property at about 11:30 a.m. that day, meeting with gardeners to discuss landscaping duties on behalf of his friend and did not notice anything amiss.
Deputies from the CV Sheriff’s Station, on receiving the informant’s call, entered the home and saw that drawers had been opened in a bedroom on the lower level. Upstairs, they found drawers in a hallway open and discovered the master suite, including the bathroom and walk-in closet, had been ransacked, and an attic crawl space door was open. A glass door leading to a balcony was shattered.
The deputy taking the report wrote that he believed suspect(s) gained entry by climbing a side gate, then transferring to an oak tree, from which they stepped onto the first-floor roof and walked across it. From there, they gained access to the second-story balcony, where they smashed the door to get inside. It was unknown at the time of the report what, if anything, had been stolen, pending the return of the residents.
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Burglary, residential: 600 block of Chatham Place. A woman reported that someone had burglarized her home while she was at church. She said she’d locked all doors before leaving the property, but had not activated the burglar alarm. On her return, she found the home had been ransacked, and that a sliding-glass door leading from a rear bedroom to a second-story balcony had been shattered.
It’s her belief that the suspect(s) climbed onto a patio table to gain access to the balcony. All other doors to the property were locked and secure when she returned home that evening.
She reported that a gold and silver Rolex watch and two silver and diamond rings had been taken from a downstairs vanity cabinet. She was given a supplemental report to file in case she discovered more items were missing.
Burglary, residential: 4700 block of Gould Avenue. A woman reported that she and her mother secured the property before going out to dinner at 5:30 p.m. When they returned at 10:30 p.m., they noticed a light in the upstairs master bedroom was on. On investigating, they found that bedroom had been ransacked and a second-floor sliding-glass door was shattered.
The daughter said they have a video surveillance camera but don’t know how to operate it. They were unable to immediately identify what might have been stolen, so they were provided a supplemental loss report to fill out at a later time.
April 20
Identity theft: 2100 block of Bristow Drive. A woman reported that on the afternoon of April 5 her cellphone showed it was “out of service.” She contacted a carrier’s representative and was told someone had activated a new SIM card (data chip) under her phone number. The victim told the representative she had not authorized anyone to do so and asked that it be deactivated and her existing SIM card reactivated.
Investigating the matter at the carrier’s website, her husband learned that someone had used the fraudulently activated SIM card to try to open a credit application using his wife’s personal identification. The victim then checked her credit report to find that someone had tried to open three credit card accounts using her ID.
On April 19 she received a credit alert that several large purchases had been made April 5 without a credit card, but by using the victim’s identification. The woman’s husband, who placed a freeze on their credit accounts, discovered he, too had been targeted, as there were four inquiries into his credit, also on April 5. He also later received two letters advising him his “credit application” had been denied because his credit was frozen.
Identity theft: 3800 block of Keswick Road. A man reported that on April 12 he received letters from three different banks regarding credit cards for which he’d never applied. Representatives at all banks told him that someone used his name, Social Security number and home address to file for lines of credit. The crime report did not indicate whether or not the fraudulently attained credit cards had been used, but the victim said he was advised by all the banks to file a police report to gain restitution.
April 21
Burglary, office: 800 block of Foothill Boulevard. An employee reported that someone removed cash from a money bag kept in a drawer at a doctor’s office. The woman said she’d locked up the business as usual at about 6 p.m. April 20, setting the alarm when she left. At about 11 a.m. the next day, another employee discovered the cash bag was missing from its usual place.
The employee making the report said she contacted the office’s owner and was told that the alarm had been disarmed at 8:59 p.m. on April 20 and reactivated approximately 14 minutes later. The employee investigated and discovered that the code used to disarm the alarm was the one assigned to the cleaning company. Based on that information, and the fact there were no signs of forced entry, she believes it was a cleaner who took the money bag.
Attempts by the responding deputy to reach the cleaner assigned to that property had been unsuccessful as of the time the report was filed.
April 23
Identity theft: 4800 block of Hillard Avenue. A deputy responding to the address after a call from a resident learned from the man that on April 17 he received a letter in the mail from a business advising him his application for credit had been denied because his identity could not be verified. The victim had not applied for the credit card.
On April 23, the same man received a phone message from another business, saying that his application for a credit card had been denied. He told the deputy he had not given anyone permission to apply for credit at any business in his name. No monetary loss was reported.
Twitter: @CarolCormaci
