Crime Report: Burglar hiding in drugstore stockroom escapes down conveyer belt

La Cañada Flintridge

Dec. 30

Identity theft: 4900 block of Crown Avenue. On Dec. 30 a woman visited the Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station to report that on Nov. 20 at approximately 6 p.m. she received a package from Verizon Wireless that contained a new Apple iPhone 6 and a receipt detailing her new purchases. On studying the receipt she realized someone had used her name and social security number to open a new cellphone account. On following up the next day with a Verizon representative, the victim learned the account had been opened on Nov. 13. She told the representative she’d never authorized that account. On Dec. 24 she received an invoice for that account. After complaining to Verizon again, she was told to file a police report in order to get those fraudulent charges dismissed and to officially close the account.

Dec. 31

Residential burglary: 1000 block of Vista del Valle Road, between 12:40 and 1:05 p.m. Deputies responded to a burglar alarm that went off at the home. Prior to their arrival, assisting units saw the home’s front door was ajar. The deputies entered the property and saw that the master bedroom and closet had been ransacked. They observed that a sliding-glass door in the bedroom that opens to the backyard had been smashed and was also ajar. The victim arrived on the scene, having been called by her alarm company at 12:50 p.m., just minutes after she’d left the house. Missing from an overturned jewelry box was one white metal necklace with a small stone.

Jan. 2

Residential burglary: 1000 block of Salisbury Court. At about 1:48 p.m. a resident looking out a window noticed a man walking across the family’s lawn and into the open garage. The suspect exited the garage carrying a black bag, got into his light-colored Jeep Wrangler, drove east on Salisbury Court to Angeles Crest Highway and out of view. The man was described as white, 5 feet 7, weighing 180 pounds, having a long goatee and in his 30s. The contents of the black bag he allegedly removed from the garage were unknown by the homeowner, who told an investigator it might have been a bag of items that had been set aside for donation.

Grand theft: 4400 block of Indiana Avenue. Sometime between Dec. 19 and Dec. 26, someone took 10 bundles of new roofing slate that had been left unsecured in the bed of a GMC truck parked in the driveway. The victim said he believed the thefts had been made over a period of time.

Jan. 4

Grand theft: 1300 block of Sugar Loaf Drive. A woman reported Jan. 4 that sometime between Sept. 21 and Sept. 28 of last year, someone took several pieces of jewelry that she’d left unsecured in a velvet bag on top of a dresser that was in a closet in the master bathroom. She was out of town during the period; a housekeeper and handyman had keys to the home. The house flooded during the homeowners’ absence, so assorted maintenance workers were let inside the home during clean-up efforts. The woman reported the theft of the jewelry to her insurance company and later learned she should also report it to the sheriff’s department. Taken in the theft were three platinum rings, one featuring a 3-carat sapphire and diamonds, another with a 4-carat emerald and the third with a 4-carat topaz surrounded by diamonds. Also taken was a gold bracelet with six diamonds set into it.

Commercial burglary: 647 Foothill Blvd. An employee of the Rite-Aid store in Plaza de La Cañada reported that at 9:45 p.m. he was in the store’s camera room tallying up the day’s receipts when he heard noise from a stockroom overhead. He went to the stockroom and started looking behind boxes to see if he could identify the source of the noises. That’s when he saw a male crouching behind some boxes. The suspect stood and ran to a conveyor belt, which he dashed down and then out an emergency door. No items were reported taken during the event. The suspect was described as Asian, about 30 to 35 years old, 5 foot 7 and 160 pounds. He was wearing a blue shirt and tan pants.

La Crescenta

Dec. 31

Vehicle burglaries: 2800 block of El Caminito. In one incident, sometime between 10 p.m. Dec. 30 and 10 a.m. Dec. 31 someone entered two vehicles that been left locked by their owners and took loose coins and a man’s watch. The locked middle console of one of the cars had been broken into during the crime. In a second report taken from a neighboring resident, sometime between 7:30 p.m. Dec. 30 and 6 a.m. Dec. 31, someone smashed the front driver’s window of her SUV and stole her purse, which had been left on the front seat. Her missing purse contained her wallet with her driver’s license, a debit card and two credit cards.

Vehicle burglary: 2800 block of Stevens Street. Sometime between 11 a.m. Dec. 30 and 10 a.m. Dec. 31, someone took an iPod, a speaker phone and a battery pack out of a locked Honda Odyssey parked in the victim’s driveway. Although the vehicle’s interior had been ransacked, there was no sign of forced entry and the car was locked when the victim returned to it.

Jan. 2

Possession of dirk or dagger: Foothill Boulevard at Rosebank Avenue. Deputies responded to a call from 2100 block of Foothill, when an informant said a man was walking around a shopping center parking lot looking into vehicles. While driving to the site, the deputies saw a man fitting the description walking along the north side of Foothill Boulevard. They stopped and approached him. He was asked to open his hands and when he complied they saw a push knife in one hand and a claw with two sharp rods in the other. They arrested Seku Kwasi Sanders of Los Angeles for possession of dirk or dagger.

Jan. 4

Petty theft: 5000 block of La Crescenta Avenue. A resident reported that two pairs of Nike’s men’s shoes were taken from his unsecured front porch sometime between midnight and 6:45 a.m. It was the second time shoes had been taken from his front porch in the past year, he told deputies, but he hadn’t reported the earlier incident.

Jan. 5

Residential burglary: 3100 block Abella Street. At 1:10 p.m. deputies responded to a call of a burglary in process. A witness saw a man prying the window at a neighbor’s house, then crawling through the window and shortly after opening the front door for his accomplice. While deputies were at the burglarized property, they were notified that men matching the description of the burglars were possibly on Montrose Avenue, just west of Ramsdell Avenue, in Montrose. Units responded to that location and arrested two Montrose men, Darren James Richards, 33, and Dana Ray Knox, 34. A laptop computer that had been stolen during the break-in was found discarded in a yard on Prospect Avenue and returned to its owner. The men arrested were reported to have been acquaintances of their victims.