Crime Report: Everything -- including the kitchen sink; multiple burglaries reported on same day

La Cañada Flintridge

Oct. 21

Burglary, residence: 4800 block of Commonwealth Avenue. A woman reported that sometime between 8:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. that day, someone broke into her unsecured, unfinished home and locked detached garage. The property was under construction and closed off in the front by a chain-link fence covered in a green canvas and a locked gate. Despite that, the home was easily accessible given that it had no front door at the time. The victim told deputies that several appliances and parts of the home had been stolen, including a clothes washer and dryer, microwave, dishwasher, refrigerator and several fans, lights, doors and fixtures in addition to an air compressor. The suspect(s) also made off with the home’s kitchen sink. Deputies observed two nearby houses had surveillance cameras, but the residents were not home at the time.

Oct. 22

Burglary, residence: 5600 block of Bramblewood Road. A woman told deputies that at around 7:50 p.m., she’d received telephonic notification from her alarm company that her interior motion alarm had been activated in her absence. The victim declined the company’s request to send deputies out to check on the property. When the woman came home at 8:25 p.m. she saw someone had shattered the glass door in the rear kitchen with an unknown object. Deputies believe access may have been gained through metal gates on the property, and that the kitchen door was the point of entry and exit. One officer saw a metal garden hose nozzle by the door that may have been used to smash the glass.

Burglary, residence: 400 block of Paulette Place. A man reported that sometime between 7 a.m. and 10:20 p.m. that day, someone shattered the rear sliding glass door of his residence and stole several pieces of electronic equipment and jewelry, ransacking several rooms in the process. Deputies believe the sliding glass door was the point of entry and the front door was the point of exit. Among the items taken were an amplifier and two microphones, three gold necklaces, two silver rings and a gold ring with a circular emblem of a Persian soldier.

Burglary, residence: 200 block of Starlane Drive. A man told deputies his nephew left his residence that day at about 1 p.m., locking all the doors before leaving except a sliding glass kitchen door at the rear of the house. When the victim came home at around 11 p.m. that day, he saw the house had been ransacked and several items were missing, including seven high-end purses, a camera and several pieces of jewelry. Deputies observed that the screen of the sliding glass door had been removed and placed on a nearby patio table. Clothes, boxes and papers had been thrown about the house. Only the nephew’s bedroom and the living room appeared to have been spared the ransacking.

Oct. 23

Burglary, residence: 5200 block of Diamond Point Road. While conducting a follow-up to a previous burglary the day before, a deputy conducted a door knock at a home that was seen in possession of a video surveillance camera that may have captured the incident. There was no answer at the door, but when the deputy looked through a window in the front door, he saw the inside of the residence had been ransacked. Checking the rear of the location, he noticed a sliding glass door leading to the living room had been pulled off its tracks. Inside, all the rooms had been ransacked and the wiring of the surveillance system panel had been cut. Inside an upstairs office, deputies noticed the hard drive for the video surveillance hard drive was missing. When called, the homeowner said he’d been on vacation in Europe since Sept. 30. He also said the motion sensor system takes pictures of any movement inside the house and emails the images to him. He forwarded the pictures to the sheriff’s deputies, taken at 8:41 p.m. They showed a dark shadow shaped like a person in a hooded sweatshirt, but no features could be identified. The rear living room door was determined to be the point of entry, while deputies believed the suspect exited through the front door.

La Crescenta

Oct. 21

Grand theft: 2400 block of Laughlin Street. A woman and her husband received a call at around noon from what sounded like a young man with a muffled voice. When the husband asked if it was his grandson, the caller said yes and explained his voice as the result of a broken nose he’d gotten in a recent vehicle accident. The man then said he was in the Dominican Republic with his friend for a wedding and had gotten arrested after getting into an accident. He urged the homeowner to contact a lawyer whose name he’d received from the US embassy to assist in his release, and asked the man not to tell his mother for fear she would worry. The victim’s wife called the number and learned from the attorney, who advised her to wire a certain amount of money to him. The couple went to multiple locations to wire the amount. When they called the attorney to ask about their grandson’s release, they were told the judge in charge of the case had left for the day, but that their grandson would be released the following day. The couple began to suspect they’d become victims of a scam and emailed their grandson. He replied that he was at home in North Carolina and knew nothing about the call.

Oct. 22

Burglary, other structure: 2200 block of Foothill Boulevard. A man told deputies that sometime between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m., someone broke into a detached metal shed located in the rear of the location and stole a light blue Makita drill, a hand-made wool rug and other pieces of miscellaneous furniture. Deputies observed that the door of the shed appeared to have been pried open and there was damage to the locking latch mechanism. Only a wooden and glass cabinet remained inside. Fingerprints were requested.

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Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardine