West Seattle Crime Watch: Burglary; possible casing

Two reader reports in West Seattle Crime Watch tonight – a burglary in which the victim lost keepsakes from family photos to her wedding ring – and what appears to have been a case of casing – details after the jump:

First – a Saturday burglary that happened fast – and the victim just wants one thing back:

4000 block of 35th ave SW. Between 1145-1215 (Saturday), when we left for a quick trip to the Junction and back. Stolen computer and wedding rings. Would hope at very least I could get my family photos back, I had 10+ years of our life on the computer and it’s gone.

In a followup exchange, we asked for a description of the stolen items

Hp touchscreen all in one. The ring is white gold with 6 round diamonds. A larger center diamond with 5 smaller ones fanning around kind of flower shape, the five diamonds each on a swirl that stems from the center.

If you have any information, call police.

And Katherine wanted to share news of this sighting:

This afternoon I witnessed a young Caucasian man in his late teens/early 20’s casing a storage unit and a garage in the alley behind Avalon/Genesee. He was on a small black bike with white handlebars and red spokes. He was wearing dirty blue coveralls over a hooded sweatshirt (hood pulled up) and baseball cap with green bill. At first I thought nothing of it, because I see various people of all types walking up & down this alleyway all the time. But this guy stopped his bike, took what looked like bolt cutters out of a messenger bag, and slowly cased the area where some neighbors have had an open garage and locked storage pod for the past week or so.

I called 911 while this was going on, and he ended up leaving on foot (walking the bike) southbound toward Genesee, then westbound toward the junction of 35th & Fauntleroy. The police came by to ask me what I saw, and they assured me that calling 911 was the right move, though they didn’t find anyone fitting his description. I’ll be careful from now on when I walk my dog in that alley — especially after dark.

P.S. Thought we had one other burglary to report – but it came in via text message, and it’s gone. For non-breaking crime reports, please e-mail editor@westseattleblog.com – thanks!

Silly Goose February 11, 2013 (8:45 am)

@ Katherine, great description especially the under layers as the reason for the coveralls is they are easy to take off and same with the baseball cap, so you possibly wouldn’t have an ID as the clothes would be wrong!

Neil February 11, 2013 (9:34 am)

Cash for gold places need to be shut down/banned from the state. Thieves can simply take stolen jewelry (heirlooms!) there with no identification and get cash. The jewelry is promptly melted down and for precious metals and jewels. No traceability.

S February 11, 2013 (1:22 pm)

Very scary about the burglary, that’s right near our place. Also, I hope Katherine let the owners of that garage know about the person casing the place.

AnotherRealist February 11, 2013 (1:28 pm)

@Katherine – thanks for reporting. I can certainly sympathize with the person that lost everything – while ultimately, the most important part is that they are safe.

I hope that, if anyone catches this creep red-handed, they only call the police after they ‘defend themselves’ against the thief (if you know what I mean). We all work way too hard at putting together a good community to let this person go unpunished.

Within a period of 1 year, I was robbed twice and jumped, beaten, and nearly put into a coma. Despite news coverage and police reports, there was a total of less than 5 minutes of face time with Seattle’s finest…please keep placing these things on the message boards…

wsn00b February 11, 2013 (1:40 pm)

To the computer theft victim (and other potential future victims) :
– Going forward, please backup your data to someplace outside your home! It is reasonably secure, cheap, automated and easy and to backup all your data online (jungledisk, carbonite, spideroak, etc). Also backup to some small USB drive that you hide away (from smash/grab thieves).

– Protecting your laptop/desktop/phones with PINs and passwords that encrypt(scramble) all your device’s contents will also prevent identity theft when your device gets robbed.

– Watch your credit closely (if you aren’t already) if you have been using your computer for financial activities.

All our data devices at home (ipads, iphones, laptops) are setup to be bricks to the average smash-n-grab thief and the only incovenience, in theory, is to restore our backups to new devices (that obviously cost money but not memories).

LisaF February 11, 2013 (2:03 pm)

Katherine – I saw the same guy last Friday, coming out of my alley (btwn Dakota and Andover, alley feeds 36th/37th). Keep an eye out, everyone!

Bunnyfer February 11, 2013 (11:14 pm)

Another heads-up – my neighbor in the 9400 block of 35th Ave SW was robbed around 2pm last Wed. Creeps broke in her front door, then let themselves into her garage and made off with her personal items. PLEASE people – if you see anything even remotely suspicious, call 911 right away!!

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