Burglar Breaks In, Steals Merchandise, Falls Asleep and Leaves In Handcuffs
In the wee morning hours aboard a renowned warship, which provides no small measure of stories about ghosts and other haunted things, strange sounds emanated from a rattling door handle to a stateroom on board Alameda’s USS Hornet Aircraft Carrier.
No one should have been there.
Not on that day; Not at that time; Not in that place.
But for Faye Navarro, sound asleep in her stateroom bunk, there was someone indeed.
Navarro heard a rattling noise, out in the passageway, just outside her door and thought, at first that she must have only been dreaming that someone was “messing with the door; someone was trying to get in, ” she said.
It was not a dream at all.
Navarro, now fully awake, “reviewed security camera footage and noticed “someone odd walking about, wandering around the ship” with the image moving in and out from screen to screen.
She tried contacting a shipmate whose phone was off for the night, and then hastened to try another, who picked up the call and notified Alameda Police at about 4:45 a.m.
It was not long before the caller determined that several items from the gift shop were missing, and that a donation box had been opened up to get the money out.
Police “got here pretty quick,” said Navarro, and plenty more were on the way.
Leo Mello, an amiable, soft-spoken shipboard security officer, noted that “about a dozen” cop cars from Alameda and Oakland PD were on scene when he came aboard at around 5 a.m.
He lamented that, “The one time I was late in coming on board, something was happening.”
The search was on, with the inquiring eyes of Hornet personnel and police scouring the vessel and security cam footage, all fixed on where the culprit might be holing up on a massive ship, filled with corridors, rooms, compartments and the like that was once the floating home of anywhere from 3,600 to 4,000 officers and crew.
It turned out the thief did not stray more than a few hundred feet from the gift shop, and, for reasons undetermined, oddly decided to hide and sleep behind a board towards the stern of the Hangar Deck by the stage. Located in his proximity and on his person were a variety of goods from the Gift Shop including a Hornet hat and hoodie, according to the arrest warrant obtained from APD.
He also ate a package of freeze-dried ice cream, in another footnote of this night of oddity.
The suspect, Shayan Amirhossini, twenty eight years old, admitted to police that he had taken the property “from within the museum and could not articulate why he was inside” the ship.
Police took him into custody and he now faces prosecution by Alameda City Prosecutor, Montague Hung,
Amirhossini is charged with three misdemeanor criminal counts, Second Degree Burglary of a Structure “with intent to commit larceny and any felony,” Petty Theft for stolen property and cash under $950 in value and trespass for “refusing and failing to leave” the ship before he was apprehended.
Alameda City has, since the passage of Measure AA in November, 11/20, had the power to prosecute crimes in the city using the power of the City Attorneys Office, especially when the city determines that Alameda County District Attorney’s office might not have the resources to handle lower level property crimes as this one.
Hornet spokesperson Laura Fies opted not to say on the record precisely how Amirhossini accessed the ship, for security reasons, but did note that, “this is a fairly impenetrable facility, so the fact that he was able to make it on is fairly audacious. It was odd, because this doesn’t usually happen because of the sheer nature of the vessel” a teeming, steel hulled craft towering high above the pier and water.
Access can only come at substantial peril to a would-be intruder, with death and serious injury looming likely in light of a fall or other mishap.
“It was astonishing that someone chose our facility to burglarize, and that we are taking steps to improve security,” to make an already difficult place to access even more difficult and high risk, said Fies. “It’s not just break a window and come in the back way,” she added
Fies said that this is only the second time in many years that such an intrusion has occurred because of the sheer hardship and danger involved with getting inside a steel hull with very limited means of access.
“It’s hard to get on a warship when we’re not open,” quipped Mark Epperson, The Hornet Museum’s CEO.
Fies complimented APD for its fast and effective response, noting that The Hornet hosts them for periodic on board training which she though helped them to locate the perpetrator as quickly as they did.
The night showed a continued on board ethic of duty and discipline on the famed warship dating back to her commissioning in November of 1943, in this case by the dedicated civilians who maintain the legacy as caretakers, guides and curators and the police who did their job effectively.
The notable exception was the burglar who left the ship that night in a way he never expected — no doubt with his sleep disrupted in a very big way.
