Rash of burglaries has West Berkeley on edge

February 8, 2012 11:55 am by Frances Dinkelspiel

The parts of West Berkeley affected by a recent string of burglaries

West Berkeley residents are on the edge after a rash of more than 20 home burglaries since Jan. 15. The burglars have been breaking into houses during the daytime, usually between 11 am and 3 pm, and making off with easy to carry items like laptops, cameras, jewelry, and cash, according to police. The area targeted by the thieves is bounded by Ashby and University Avenues and San Pablo Avenue and Sacramento Street.

On Monday, about 70 neighborhood residents gathered at the Corporation Yard to talk to Berkeley police about the crimes and what could be done. David Morin, a sales and marketing manger for Northwestern Mutual Life who has lived in West Berkeley for six years, attended the community forum. Morin’s house was one of those burglarized. He shares his story:

“It all started two weeks ago on a Friday afternoon.   was reading Berkeleyside, looking over the most recent “Police Blotter”, when I came across a post in the comments section that caught my attention. The post mentioned that there had been a rash of daytime burglaries in the Poet’s Corner.  That was my neighborhood.  I normally pick up my kids after work but decided to go home a little early that day.  I didn’t want to have my kids with me when I walked in the house and confronted a potential burglar or even a burglarized house. I’ve lived in that house for 5 years now and never once did I open the door thinking someone could have been on the other side. That afternoon I pushed the door open slowly, thinking for the first time that someone could be in there. Luckily there was no one waiting for me.  Though there were papers on the ground, 2 missing laptops, and a missing window pane in the back door.

“I felt compelled to write a comment back to that original poster. How could I not? She was probably writing that comment as my house was being robbed. What are the odds? She responded to my post and said she was organizing a neighborhood crime meeting soon.

“A week later as I was getting my kids out of the car and slowly shuffling them into the house, I noticed a woman stapling a flyer up on a nearby telephone pole. She came over and handed me a flyer about an emergency crime meeting. Her name was Kathy Harr and she was the one organizing the meeting.  It turns out she was the woman from the Berkeleyside comments section. A week earlier we had been anonymously connecting with each other about something so personal.  Now here we were, our paths randomly intersecting in real world coordinates. The world works in strange ways sometimes.

“The emergency crime meeting was held at the Corporation Yard this past Monday and it was packed.  Standing room only. The overall mood was of anger and helplessness. Strangely enough, I found another emotion surfacing inside me.  I felt neighborhood pride at the sheer number of people that showed up. Even the evening’s main speaker, Berkeley Police Officer Cesar Melero, seemed to be surprised at the amount of people that came out.  His 10 crime pamphlets would barely cover the front row.

“Officer Melero’s talk focused on the trends of the burglaries. He included descriptions of the suspects from several eyewitnesses and tips on what we could do to help prevent them. Tips included buying a safe, leaving radios on when not home, watching out for your fellow neighbors, and calling 911 when you spot suspicious lurkers in neighbors’ yards. Mostly it seemed like common sense stuff and didn’t alleviate any feelings of helplessness.

“There was one unanticipated outcome of the meeting.  I managed to walk away from the meeting with a new connection to my neighborhood (too bad it took a robbery to get there).  I met a few neighbors I had never met before, swapped some emails, and exchanged some empathetic smiles and nods.  Though it wasn’t the crime solution I was looking for, it turned out to be a nice salve for my current insecurities.”

Berkeleyside publishes a weekly police blotter, with data provided by BPD and UCPD, on Fridays. See last week’s here. For more information on crime in Berkeley, see the San Francisco Chronicle’s regularly published list of arrests in Berkeley, Community CrimeView and Crimemapping.com.

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  • Anonymous

    We set up a Google Group for our block association – it lets us keep in touch and alert each other when something is happening on the block.

    I keep TweetDeck open on one of my monitors.

    A Twitter Alert using relevant #HashTags would quickly and instantly let lots of people know what’s going on, and perhaps help catch the thieves. 

    #Berkeley #Crime #Alert ____ Block of ____ near the corner of _____ 

    I’ll leave the “Big Neighbor” aspect of this for others to discuss.

    Ira

  • l.

    So what is the description of the suspects?  I live in the area but wasn’t able to attend the meeting and would certainly like that information!

  • Chris

    According to the Berkeley Voice story they are “mostly teenagers”.

    My bet is that whoever is doing this is connected with the dope boys that hang out on Bonar between Allston & Bancroft. Some of them live on 7th/8th around Bancroft and I see them making the trek back and forth between Bonar, the liquor store on Bancroft and San Pablo, and 7th street.

  • Anonymous

    I didn’t see the flyer until yesterday, so I missed the meeting.  Were there any contacts for neighborhood groups or anything?  I don’t know anyone in my neighborhood except my immediate neighbors.

  • a West Berkeley resident

    I just sent an email to Officer Melero inquiring whether there is any possible relationship between the new charter school in West Berkeley that is a middle school and high school.  Since the incidence of residential burglaries are high around the neighborhood surrounding Berkeley High School, it does not surprise me that adding high schoolers into the West Berkeley neighborhood would result in a spike in the numbers of residential burglaries.

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    They interviewed a guy on KTVU who said he confronted “African American teenagers” who had broken into his house.

    No information about clothing was mentioned in the interview.

  • Poet’s Corner Resident

    is there a charter school in west berkeley that has opened recently?  i know there’s one slated to open in part of the old berkeley adult school complex, but not until 2013 or 2014.

  • Chris

    The charter school is on 8th and Acton. I doubt it has anything to do with these robberies, but…

  • Anonymous

    I spoke to an officer who happened to be available this afternoon and asked him why that neighborhood in particular.  He said it was kids from the neighborhood preying on their own neighbors.  At least one is the offspring of a guy who made a habit of being on BPD’s radar.  So, closer relations between neighbors do seem like a good prescription.  

    I also happen to think that BUSD’s various programs to provide services to at risk youth would help here, especially if we weren’t trying to apply them to the entire East Bay.  Berkeley has plenty of its own problems, as this story demonstrates.

  • Chris

    It’s the WSB boys who hang out on bonar between allston & bancroft

  • Peter Moore

    I think you mean 8th & Addison

  • neighbor

    I live in the neighborhood and my house was burglarized in 2009.  I was
    unable to attend Monday night’s meeting but I’d love more information.  I’m going to try to activiate my old twitter account and get in the loop.

    I work from home and this whole thing has made me paranoid about scheduling meetings elsewhere. 

  • http://caviarcommunism.us West Bezerkeley

    Let’s name names here. The problem liquor store in question is Lo-Cost Liquor. It’s been a magnet for gang activity for over 5 years with H2O Waterfront frequenting the location regularly. It is also in the same territory as the WSB (the local Norteno gang).

    Frankly, with the brouhaha over cannabis dispensaries needing to be 1000 Ft away from schools and parks, I’d love to know why a liquor store that is known for attracting gang activity is allow to operate 806 feet away from a Montessori School.

    http://maps.yahoo.com/#conf=1&start=1&lat=37.864410566966&lon=-122.29241251945496&zoom=18&mvt=m&trf=0&q1=2301+San+Pablo+Ave%2C+Berkeley%2C+CA++94702-2038&q2=2234+9th+St%2C+Berkeley%2C+CA++94710-2322

    I posed the question to Ryan Lau in Darryl Moore’s office on January 13, 2012, but it went unanswered. I wonder why?

  • Lisaev

     when my neighborhood was targeted (and i think this is cyclical throughout Berkeley) there was a lot of prowl car action-i think BPD needs to be as visible as possible. Our tenant, my partner and I all work very different hours so theres really never a time when no one is here, and we mobilized the neighbors too. Lots of my neighbors work at home the hours these weenies are cruising so we made ourselves more visible. We also installed cameras that look at the path next to our house, the front of the house AND the street in front of the neighbor houses too. My neighbors also have annoying little yappy barking dogs, but in this case this a good thing as they are an early alert system. We also leave nothing in the  cars in front of the house either; take your garage door clicker in w/you. Close the curtains, leave a radio on. Make it as difficult as possible for these little bastards to get in!

  • Chris

    So many problems stem from these liquor stores. I have noticed that since Gallegos moved next to St Helena Liquors the additional foot traffic has pushed the h20 guys to use Lo-cost more.

  • Chris

    Yes – Addison. Thank you.

  • Chris

    Sorry – h20/waterfront

  • lauram

    Lo-Cost liquors has been a nuisance for even longer than the 5 years. As you know I appreciated your efforts to organize this west Berkeley neighborhood and was disappointed with the resistance  to tackle problems directly. A resident prior to your involvement tried for years  to get action on Lo-Cost for years.

    Do folks recall the hostility some B-Side commentators expressed to my observations that corner stores are not always a positive especially when poorly managed.  

    Council member Anderson recently led the council vote in favor of public nuisance about the Parker St rooming house, yet he did not support public nuisance abatement for drug houses with violent crime in south Berkeley.

    Time to ask Councilmember Moore for action on Lo-Cost.
    BAPAC provided council and city staff on their request with operating standards for the regulations of alcohol sales,  the implementation of the alcohol monitoring and enforcement program was stalled after city council adopted  ordinance language.
    Moore used his support for the alcohol regulatory program as a campaign point to answers decades of flatlanders frustrated about the nexus of crime and poorly managed alcohol outlets.

  • Lindsey J.

    I understand people’s concerns, but please let us not assume all strangers have bad intentions. I live in West Berkeley and regularly bike and walk through the neighborhood. Whenever I find keys, wallets, notebooks etc. dropped on the street just outside of a vehicle parked on the street I go knock on the homes that I think the car might be connected with. I can’t tell you how unfriendly and mistrusting many people are when I do this. I recently found a notebook filled with information about a lawsuit on a day where rain was imminent, the scowling woman refused to open the door as she peered through the window saying “Since I did not invite you to my home I cannot imagine there is anything you would have to say that I would be interested in”. I said not a word and left the notebook on the sidewalk to be rained on.

    I know people often do racial profiling so I will add that I am white, female, in my early 40′s, wearing a bicycle helmet and smile.

  • Fixthestreets

    Maybe you should have scratched a “hobo sign” on the sidewalk to warn the next person that the residents are unfriendly. :-)

    Seriously, though, there can be a lot of unwelcome solicitors in an urban environment such as ours.  I’ve seen both sides of that coin.

  • Anonymous

    A suggestion from experience:  While I do not live in this neighborhood, I have been told repeatedly that when apartments and homes in N. Berkeley are burglarized, the same suspects, or their friends,  then return about two weeks later and burglarize it again as they know that all items that were taken in the first burglary will have been replaced by owners and their insurance and will be thus be brand new.  Ugly is it not?  Infuriating is more appropriate.  Actually catching them would not be that hard *if* you really thought about it long and hard enough. Suggestion:  Hire two very large black fellows from the hood with cars and simple black shirts and jackets that say in yellow print “Neighborhood Security”  Have them check on your homes during the day and stay in touch by cell phone.  I suspect you will see this problem fall off dramatically.  Have this organised through BPD.  Let the word on the street go out that this is a “NO GO” spot to avoid at all times.  Also pay them well and make it ongoing.

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    Too bad the City Council threw out the anti-loitering laws.
    They would actually be helpful in managing the problems associated with Lo-Cost Liquors and other bad-neighbor corner liquor stores in Berkeley.

  • http://caviarcommunism.us West Bezerkeley

     Time to ask Councilmember Moore for action on Lo-Cost

    I hear you Laura!

     Unfortunately I have to work & pay my mortgage. As much as I appreciate talking with Darryl and Ryan, when you need to address a real issue, the office is a quagmire that voraciously consumes productivity and produces…well, frankly I’m not sure what it produces.

    To be fair to Ryan and Darryl, I don’t know if it’s them or if it’s the nature of the entire City of Berkeley, but action happens at glacial speeds supervised by Mad Hatter management. I simply don’t have the stomach for another round of spinning my wheels with city representatives.

    I operate at the speed of business & have little patience (as you well know) for laggards and people pleading that we can’t do this and we can’t do that because “this is Berkeley.”

    For me, quarter million dollar projects that institute real strategic change for corporate clients can get done in a calendar quarter (3 months). For Berkeley, real strategic change takes years and costs millions. I don’t know how to play in that kind of Wonderland world and am pretty sure that I don’t care to. It’s easier  to arm yourself with a Taser on the street and a .45 at home than to believe that anything can be accomplished via politicians & the political process in this city.

    I admit it, I’m a hardcore cynic, but only because of what I’ve already been through when I was actively promoting change for W. Berkeley. My experiences with the city opened my eyes to the reality of this city & I still feel that City Hall is in desperate need of a not so gentle high colonic administered with a fire hose.

  • http://caviarcommunism.us West Bezerkeley

    I’ve seen this shift as well & had to cross paths with several gang members leaving Lo-Cost after they stepped out into traffic on San Pablo around 7pm a couple weeks ago, stopping cars and making a scene. Thinking about these issues and my cynicism about our city being able to address crime and gang problems in a meaningful and long-term way, I came across a cartoon that made me laugh in the New Yorker because I imagined it would be precisely what the attorneys of the people arrested in West and South Berkeley would say in court. Take a look for a nice laugh.

    http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2012/02/13/cartoons_20120206#slide=13

  • http://caviarcommunism.us West Bezerkeley

    BTW, I could only state 5 years of problems around Lo-Cost since I haven’t been in this part of Berkeley for much longer than that. I’ve heard Lo-Cost has been a problem for a long time though.

  • lauram

     Loitering at liquor stores violates the use permit,  code enforcement is actionable on this matter.

  • lauram

     Loitering at liquor stores violates the use permit,  code enforcement is actionable on this matter.

  • Erikasmithdesign

    Is this a joke? “Hire two very large black fellows”?! I live in N. Berkeley – and for the record am a “small black gal” – and find your comment to be truly offensive. If that is progressive thinking then I fear for my children’s future. It is a bummer when Berkeleyside comments sound like something lifted from Fox News.

  • lauram

    Yet hiring folks who have personal experience with the street life and happen to be black to INTERRUPT gang violence and crime is a national trend in major cities.

    This is not a racist perspective, it is a fact of some social programs your tax dollars fund.

  • Anonymous

    Yes, it’s as simple and yet effective as that.  While I normally do not reply to secondary comments on any of my posts let me just say that the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland did this years ago with the tallest and smartest looking dark skinned fellows dressed up in what appeared to be near para military uniforms + interconnected radios, for security there at night.  Good vibes also!  I never felt so safe or welcomed as per anything that might arise as people of all colors do crazy and surreal things in theaters when the lights go down ( try smoking right next to you for starters! ).  They know just how to get in there and take care of that real quickly and speak the language.  In Germany — the new one — it’s called ‘soft power’ and is comes in many colors and versions.  

        Time and again acquaintances from S. Berkeley have told me that in general BPD is totally clueless when it brings in white cops from the suburbs with the ’50s barbershop haircuts to patrol the street there and make arrests.  They tend to shoot first and ask question last if at all ( fear driven responses ).  Not good.  Nobody wants to have anything to do with them.  

         Aside and apart from this issue of security black america needs to start on ongoing conversation on what it means ( really means ) to raise a healthy child from day one forward.  I am not sure it can be done with all of the thinking errors and distortions in the surrounding culture and neighborhood.  It’s *bad* enough in what is generically called white culture in the US.  Stay in a university setting that values knowledge, education as well as change ( no you do not need a silly degree! ) and hug and “cherish” any child that is brought into this world.  Just by virtue of having dinners together each night, with the phones turned fully off, is more healing than any lecture, book or program.  I had better stop as this is a deep and complex conversation, however it needs to begin with the correct voices and in the correct way.  I am thinking of this one young black woman who is on her way into medicine and has a 500 watt smile and lights of the entire medical office that she works in.  How did she mange to do this?!!!  Sometimes all it take is one great parent figure, the right breaks at the right time and a calm determination and internal belief that the sky is the limit, and it is. And no it’s never as easy as it seems, I know that all painfully all too well now.  It can be a life long battle.  

  • Scotty

    But the undercover republican councilman on our City Council wants to give away our police protection with a phoney (and unconstitutional and thrown out in court.) Sitting Ban Law. With burglaries and yes a pubic shooting we could use the police here, not chasing a few kids around and around, transporting to jail, testifying in court ect, ect, ect. Darryl Moore has used his office for business networking and could care less about the average voter. I hope a better fit for us on the council steps forward.

  • Scottyduck

    Maybe if more residents were aware of the block association.

  • Scotty

    My son goes to REALM CHARTER he’s a great kid at a great school we should all be very proud of

  • Scottyduck

    When you elect a businessman your councilman sometimes you get stuck with a person only interested in personal networking and I fear that’s the case with Darryl. A replacement there is needed if we are going to get anywhere.

  • Charles_Siegel

    A similar law in Seattle was found to be constitutional. 
    http://www.povertylaw.org/poverty-law-library/case/49400/49483

  • http://www.caviarcommunism.us/ West Bezerkeley

    Darryl works for the Oakland Housing Authority. He’s a bureaucrat, not a businessman. There are light years of difference between the two.

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