Thieves Use Flat Tire Ruse to Steal Cash from Victims

Two men stole the purse of a woman on her way to a funeral Thursday after they offered to help change a tire on her car--which they had earlier flattened--police said.

It was the 13th such theft in Glendale this year, police spokesman Chahe Keuroghelian said.

“It’s low,” Glendale Police Sgt. Terry Jones said of the theft at Forest Lawn-Glendale. “But these guys have no sense of morals anyway.”

The incident is similar to other recent thefts, Keuroghelian said. In one such case, two men in a car followed a woman from a bank in Glendale after she withdrew cash, somehow flattened her right rear tire when she was stopped in traffic, signaled for her to pull over, then offered to help change the tire.

In most instances, the driver usually leaves her purse on the passenger seat as she steps out, and while one man pretends to work on the tire, the other snatches the purse and the thieves flee, Keuroghelian said. Most thefts have victimized women who have withdrawn money from banks in the 300 block of North Brand Boulevard.

On occasion, the thieves have been a man and a woman, and in a few instances, the victims were male, he said.

The bandits have netted from $40 to $4,000 and a cellular phone in their heists, Keuroghelian said.

In Thursday’s theft, the bandits made off with a reported $300 in cash, Jones said.

Keuroghelian said women withdrawing money from banks should put the cash in their pockets, not in their purses. He said the flat tire scam is popular among thieves not only in Glendale, but across the county.