Crime Report: Loss prevention officer reportedly spots man placing necklaces into his mouth
La Cañada Flintridge
Feb. 29
Grand theft, vehicle: 5300 block of Stardust Road. A woman told deputies she’d heard her neighbors talking about multiple burglaries that had occurred in the area earlier that morning. Feeling concerned, she reviewed her surveillance recordings of the street outside her house.
She saw a small white car park near the front of her house at 1:13 a.m. The footage showed a Latino male, possibly 35 to 45 years old and about 5 feet 7, walking up to both her cars — a 2008 Lexus ES 350 and a 2007 Audi A4 — and removing all the side mirror lenses.
When the victim checked her cars, she discovered the mirrors were missing. The video footage showed the man getting into a small white, two-door car, possibly a Toyota, parked east of the driveway to retrieve some sort of device he used to remove the mirrors. Deputies noted that there were two other vehicle thefts reported that day.
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March 1
Shoplifting: 2100 block of Foothill Boulevard. A store manager reported that at around 5:40 p.m. a male in his 40s, about 5 feet 7 and weighing 165 pounds, wearing a gray T-shirt, black jacket and blue jeans, walked into the store and stole a floor lamp and cake-decorating kit before fleeing in a vehicle heading eastbound on Foothill Boulevard. He was seen getting into a burgundy Kia.
The manager said the man had approached her at the checkout stand with a cake-decorating kit and lamp, saying he wanted to return the items but didn’t have the receipt. The manager recalled a female who’d returned the same cake-decorating kit the day before without a receipt and had gotten a gift card for half the item’s amount, according to store policy.
To verify her identity, the woman provided a name and phone number along with a Glendale address. The employee scanned the man’s item and found it was the same exact decorating kit. When she told him she could not honor the return, the man took the items and left the store without making any attempt to pay for them.
The manager followed him outside and saw the back of his vehicle was full of unopened merchandise from other stores, so she called the sheriff’s department. She also called Jo-Ann Fabric in Glendale and was advised the suspect had been there to return items without a receipt. She told the Glendale store employee to notify the Glendale Police Department about the transaction.
DMV checks run on both the male and female suspects returned information on two Glendale residents at separate addresses.
March 4
Shoplifting: 600 block of Foothill Boulevard. A loss prevention officer told deputies that sometime between 12:17 and 12:20 p.m. a male Latino adult entered the store through a front door, walked directly to the jewelry department and removed two necklaces from their displays before concealing them in his front sweatshirt pocket.
The man then walked out the front door without paying for the items. The loss prevention officer, who’d been watching the store’s surveillance camera monitors at the time of the incident, recognized the suspect as a man who’d previously made several non-receipt returns at multiple store locations in the area.
The video showed the man removing the necklaces from his pocket and putting them in his mouth as he approached the exit. The store officer approached the man and identified herself, at which point he ran outside and toward Foothill Boulevard out of view.
The employee provided deputies with a possible name associated with the man, as well as a license plate number and vehicle description for a white Toyota Camry that was seen at another location.
March 5
Attempted petty theft, unlocked vehicle: 4600 block of Oak Grove Drive. A man reported that sometime shortly after 7:50 a.m., a man was working inside a barn on the premises when he saw a black Hyundai Elantra back into a parking spot directly near a 2015 Mercedes E350. A black male about 40 years of age, wearing a gray hat and black and white hooded sweatshirt got out of the Hyundai and opened the rear trunk of the Mercedes.
The witness said the man was startled when he saw him and threw his hands in the air above his head before slamming the trunk closed, getting back in his car and driving southeast from the parking lot and out of view.
Video surveillance indicated the suspect did not take any items from inside the car. The owner later told deputies the car had been unlocked.
Petty theft, cell phone: 700 block of Foothill Boulevard. A man left his cellphone on the desk of an office at around 2:30 p.m. while teaching a class. When he returned to the desk about 40 minutes later, it was missing.
He told deputies he believed an unknown black male adult in his 30s, with a short hair cut and wearing jeans, may have taken the phone, as he’d come into the business earlier asking several questions. By the time the victim had returned to his desk, the man was gone.
March 7
Grand theft: 1000 block of Foothill Boulevard. A man told deputies that sometime between 5 p.m. on Friday and 7 a.m. that day, someone stole the tailgate off of a locked white Toyota Tacoma.
The informant said he’d left the job site at around 5 p.m. on Friday and had seen the victim’s undamaged vehicle parked in the parking lot just north of the location. When he returned that day, he noticed the tailgate was missing.
He told deputies that a nearby security camera that typically faces where the truck was parked had been turned upward toward the sky. Deputies noted the truck, a company vehicle, has been parked at the same location for months and that the victim was not present at the time of the report.
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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com
Twitter: @SaraCardine
