Police Respond Quickly, But Criminals Still Manage To Flee Alameda With A Haul, as Locals Fume In Frustration
At least two alleged car thieves roving the streets of Alameda from around one to six a.m. on Saturday, Sept 30, left town in the same stolen vehicle in which they arrived, along with at least one, felony level item of stolen property.
Details of that night’s events provide insight into some of the tactics the crooks use as well as their attitudes of near indifference to being apprehended and callousness about the victims they leave in their wake.
Brendt Mullan, a watchful resident on Garfield Ave. initially warded off the pair at about 5:45 a.m. after the debased duo engaged in at least four, prior separate, attempts to steal at least one vehicle and contents within cars.
The perpetrators were earlier spotted attempting their first reported rip on Union Street at about 5:14 a.m. before being called in to police again at 5:47 on the 1800 block of Cambridge Drive. After engaging there, they headed to Garfield Ave. at about 5:51 a.m. to continue with their spree.
Mullan, who happened to be in a front room of his house on the 3200 block of Garfield, heard a car alarm sound just across the street at about 5:52a.m. and yelled “the police are on their way,” even though his cell phone was in another room at the time.
The bluff worked, at least for the time being, though the would-be thieves did not seem especially alarmed, in contrast to Mullan and the target car’s blaring horn.
“When going out the first time, the man was stooped over leaning into the car. When I yelled to leave and that the cops were coming, I was ignored for what seemed like a minute. When he emerged from the car, he slowly sauntered back to the SUV, not showing a modicum of urgency. He climbed into the back seat, and the car sped off,” said Mullan.
The crooks’ stolen, bulky white Nissan Armada –or similar vehicle—sporting a sizeable dent in the driver’s side door, returned about four minutes later, still in the hunt to leave town in a Lexus parked across from Mullan’s home.
This time, with the Lexus’ alarm screaming again, the would-be car thief smashed through a small window near the car’s hatchback door, reached in and unlocked the driver’s side passenger door and then the driver’s side door before hopping in, busting open a transmission release control, and forcing the vehicle into neutral.
This time, Mullan was not bluffing when he yelled “the police are on their way,” and APD patrol cars began to roll to the scene.
“Once again, I yelled and yelled. This time the SUV was double-parked and I couldn’t see anyone. “
Meanwhile, the driver of the crooks’ transport vehicle pulled behind the target car and rammed it forward in a failed attempt to jump start the car before it hit a parked BMW SUV and bounced backward, about 10 feet, causing about $2,500 in damage to the rear bumper and other areas of the struck car.
“After my yelling again for probably half a minute, the SUV backed up behind the Infinity and rammed it at full speed. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. I couldn’t believe the brazeness of these criminals,” said Mullan
Police arrived on scene about four or five minutes after Mullan’s call to them, missing the crooks by about two or three minutes after the crew had briefly scouted East Shore, before turning right on Fernside, presumably to leave via the High Street Bridge.
A second APD vehicle drove down Fernside towards the bridge in an attempt to track them down and pull them over, to no avail.
“When they sped away down Eastshore, only to come back and escape down High Street towards the bridge, I felt hopeless,” said Mullan, who praised the professionalism of the officers on scene.
Around then, a third APD black and white arrived, bringing the number of responding officers to three.
“Who literally steals a wheelchair from someone? The 9th ring of hell is too good for amoral criminals who would do such a thing.”
William Chartier, Car Burglary Victim
The target car, fortunately for the resident, had recently been ‘totaled’ by his insurance company after having had its right front headlight and bumper area smashed in and partially shaved off, following an earlier crash inflicted by a road rage driver.
Now the insurance company, not he, will suffer the substantial monetary loss for his vehicle which was scheduled to be towed away on the following Monday.
That was not the case for the owner of the SUV, who will have to shell out the $500 amount of his deductible.
The local tab piled up, along with sheer outrage at the depravity of the criminals, as one more resident, in a half block area of Garfield, suffered felony level property loss.
William Chartier’s wife’s transport scooter, needed to assist her with mobility when out and about from the car, had been stowed in the back and the thieves snagged that vital piece of equipment as well as almost anything else they could purloin from the vehicle.
Chartier’s home security video camera captured images of the bloated Nissan and a black pick up truck parked next to the target car to provide partial cover at about 1 a.m.
Chartier later found his back gate open, a sign that one of the hoodlums may have been casing his backyard in search of whatever was there for the easy pickings.
“Not only did they steal her mobility scooter out of our car, right in front of our house, but the next morning I found that they had also forced open the side gate to our backyard. So I have purchased some motion activated spotlights to shine on our back gate and side door into our backyard,” he added.
The thieves left with their growing passel of stolen property and ongoing menace to continue in the hunt, moving West to later be spotted again at Union Street.
Chartier vented an increasingly common refrain among so many in Alameda who have been victimized by car thefts, catalytic converter thefts and stolen property purloined from their vehicles.
“Who literally steals a wheelchair from someone? The 9th ring of hell is too good for amoral criminals who would do such a thing.
We left San Francisco because my wife’s mobility scooter had been stolen 3 times, amongst other reasons. I figured if we moved to a place that was safe for kids, like Alameda, it would be safe for my wife as well.
What infuriates me the most is that we know they were driving a stolen car. The house I paid 1.2 million for is a half-mile from the worst part of Oakland, and the knuckleheads who come here to rob obviously think of us as easy prey,“ said Chartier.
But the problem they and the community face is vast and growing, both nationwide and regionally.
Oakland has suffered approximately 10,500 car thefts so far this year compared to Alameda, running at about 760 through August, a number way more than double that of last year at this time.
Based on a per capita basis Alameda is at about 40% of Oakland’s rate for car thefts. Based on a square mile comparison , Alameda’s rate is about 60% of Oakland’s rate.
But Alameda’s substantially lower rate provides Chartier no solace.
“Without any consequences, these crews will just keep coming. Again I ask, what should we as homeowners do?”
He knows that he cannot take the law into his own hands and do what some fantasize about in action hero-like scenarios, employing, for example, pursuing escaping criminals or engaging in the use of deadly force at the point of a gun.
Time and again, APD urges, as did Chief Nishant Joshi during an in-depth audio interview with ANN that folks steer clear of directly engaging. (you can hear the interview HERE)
“I implore community members to not put yourselves at any unnecessary risk, and just be the best at gathering information,” for APD to use.
The Chief wants folks to “be our eyes and ears” to supplement those of officers, LPR’s and so on, and to not hesitate to call APD when viewing suspicious or overtly criminal activity. “We want you to call,” he said.
Eventually, LPR’s on the High Street Bridge recorded the thugs leaving the island at about 6 a.m., too late for police to apprehend them, at least for now.
“I just wish that the once the license plate readers identified a stolen car entering our city, that All Police Bulletin would go into effect to hunt them down, vented Mullan.
Alameda police have had some successes with respect to Mullan’s wishes and worries, though obtaining aggregated data of car thief arrests and returned stolen vehicles in Alameda is difficult to divine.
Several inquiries from ANN to APD to get a detailed overview are still awaiting a full response .
APD’s Crime Graphics data base shows a total of 44 calls to APD for stolen vehicles on the main island of Alameda with four more from Harbor Bay Isle in a nine day period from 10/1 through 10/9, an average of over five per day.
As was the case with the incident in this story, not all stolen vehicle calls translate into actual vehicle thefts.
One notable, recent win over the bad guys came last month as the result of work by “the night team” as the following APD Facebook post indicates.
“With the help of automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology and sharp eyes, since September 9, this was the sixth stolen vehicle our evening patrol team recovered that resulted in an arrest.” the post states.
No doubt, Chartier and Mullan articulate on the record what most people in Alameda say online and across the dinner table and what all members of APD are dedicated to achieve.
“If they start catching more of these crooks, the message will be sent not to come to Alameda to do crimes,” said Mullan, in guarded optimism, fueled by the ongoing addition of new officers to the force this year, with more in the pipeline.
(For more on APD Officer Staffing, please listen to the ANN interview with Chief Joshi HERE.