Crime Report: Burglars shatter more windows, doors as they continue to plague La Cañada households
April 22
Burglary from vehicle: 2100 block of La Cañada Crest Drive. A man reported that he left his Subaru locked and parked in a carport at about 2:30 p.m. on April 21. When he returned to it the next day, he could see it had been ransacked. Nothing was taken from the passenger compartment, but a gym bag containing clothes and a pair of Nike shoes in a shoe box had been taken from the trunk of the car.
April 24
Petty theft: 1900 block of Foothill Boulevard. A woman reported that sometime between 10 and 10:14 a.m. that day, while she was working out on a stair-stepping machine at the location, someone stole her Nike backpack, which she’d set on the floor next to the machine before she began her workout. Missing with the backpack was a Mercedes key fob with a house key on it and a red hooded sweater with “Omegatron” printed on it.
April 25
Annoying phone calls: 300 block of San Juan Way. A man reported that sometime after he accepted a Facebook friend request from a woman, she began making phone calls to him, pressing him to leave his wife. He said he realized the woman must have gotten his contact information from his Facebook account, so he deleted it. Fearing the woman is emotionally unbalanced and might harm him or his family members, he sought help from the sheriff’s station. He was advised to take out a restraining order.
Burglary: 300 block of St. Katherine Drive. A woman checking on her mother’s home said someone had entered the property through a wood-frame door, damaging its frame, to gain entrance, sometime between 3 p.m. on April 22 and 10 p.m. on April 24. It was the second burglary at the residence in less than a month; the previous break-in was on April 7, when the house was ransacked. This time, someone stole a flat-screen TV from the family room and a sterling silver teapot from a cabinet in the kitchen. She said she’d not bothered to clean up the house after the first burglary, as no one had been living at the home for several months.
Attempted burglary: 600 block of Starlight Crest Drive. A female resident of the home reported that when she was alone at the property, in her bedroom at 8:40 p.m., she heard someone tapping on her bedroom window. She heard another tapping noise, then she heard the sound of footsteps, followed by a loud bang at the glass sliding door of the master bedroom. She yelled out, hearing in response the laughter of two male voices.
She called law enforcement for assistance. The deputy who took the report subsequently received a call from two sheriff station’s volunteers on patrol. They told the deputy they’d been stopped in their car at the intersection of Crown Avenue and Starlight Crest when they saw a white, 4-door Scion Cube with LE.D lights on the bottom of it, front and rear, traveling east on Starlight Crest at about 45 miles per hour. They saw two people in it but could not give a description of them.
April 26
Burglary: 5000 block of Princess Anne Road. A woman reported that her mother left the home on April 23 for a vacation. When the daughter checked the house on April 26 she found it had been ransacked. The window panes in a master bedroom door had been shattered.
On the same day she made that discovery, her mother received a phone call from a bank fraud department advising her that a seldom-used debit card had been used to make several online purchases.
April 27
Burglary: 4500 block of Lasheart Drive. A woman reported she left the home on April 26 for a brief trip, leaving bedroom windows slightly ajar. When she returned on April 27, she found two bedrooms had been ransacked and several plastic milk crates stacked underneath one of the windows.She could not immediately identify all that had been stolen, but noted that a Dell laptop computer and a Louis Vuitton purse were missing.
April 28
Grand theft: 2300 block of Foothill Boulevard. An orange recycling container used to collect used clothing for needy families was reported stolen from a parking lot.
Petty theft: 900 block of Foothill Boulevard. A cashier at a cookie/ice cream store reported that a man he served that afternoon paid for two cookies with a $100 bill. While he was counting out the change to the customer, the man also counted it, then handed the cashier another bill (amount not specified in the report) and asked for change for that.
While the cashier counted out that second round of change, the suspect reached over and picked off a piece of currency from the cashier’s hand. The cashier said this move confused him and he believed he’d been intentionally distracted by the man, who ran through the parking lot after that encounter.
A count of the till after the exchange showed it was short by more than $100.
The suspect was described as black, 40 to 50 years old, wearing a black baseball cap, red shirt and black jeans. Another worker at the store recognized the suspect as having been a customer there the day before who complained the prices were too high.
Burglary, vehicle: Angeles Crest Highway at Town Center Drive. A woman reported that several pieces of fine jewelry and a Nordstrom Visa credit card were stolen from her locked Jeep Grand Cherokee sometime between 3:15 and 5:30 p.m. that day.
She said she’d been in the area for a dentist’s appointment and had stopped to have a bite to eat. While she was dining, she received a fraud alert call asking if she’d made a purchase at 5:09 that day, then attempted to make a second purchase afterward. She said no, then went to her parked car. There she discovered the credit card had been taken from a wallet she’d left in the vehicle and that a bag full of 14 items of expensive fine jewelry had been taken as well.
When asked by the responding deputy why she was carrying so much jewelry, she said she’d packed it for a weekend trip she was taking. She said she suspects someone used a key fob to open the Jeep.
April 29
Vandalism: 4200 block of Chula Senda Road. A man reported that someone threw three or four eggs on his concrete wall. Based on video surveillance footage, he suspects the culprits were driving a white sedan.
Twitter: @CarolCormaci
