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Crime & Safety

Crime Blotter: Car Vandalized, Home Ransacked, Grocery Store Robbed

A sampling of the previous week in crime and crime fighting.

Nosy Neighbors Needed. A woman left her Sybil Avenue home at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Monday, June 20, believing her house was fully secure, according to the police report. 

When she returned at about 5:30 p.m., her doors were still locked but upon entering she noticed her living room, bedroom and home office had been ransacked; she was missing a laptop computer, digital camera, jewelry and duffle bag, the report said.

An officer said the window screen to the master bathroom at the rear of the home had been ripped off and the window was fully open. A bathroom window at the front of the house was also open and the window screen had been left in the bathroom, according to the officer.

The officer contacted the victim's neighbors, none of whom reported seeing or hearing anything suspicious that day.

Just Bad Luck? A man parked and locked his 1999 green Isuzu Rodeo in front of his home on Hays Street about 10:30 p.m. the night of Wednesday, June 22.

When he left to go to work at 4 a.m. the next day, he saw that his car had been sprayed with a substance from the driver's door to the hood, and the substance had eaten away the paint on his vehicle, according to the police report.

The victim told police he did not know who would have vandalized his car, but that it had been defaced many times before.

Witness Helps Catch Grocery Store Thief. That same day, June 22, a man entered the Food Maxx on Lewelling Boulevard at approximately 5 p.m. Loss prevention agents and another witness watched the man place several items in a backpack and walk out of the store without paying, according to the police report.

The witness approached the suspect outside the store and the man dropped the items and fled, police said.

Then a clerk pointed out the SUV in the parking lot that the suspect entered, which had two "for sale" signs plus a phone number in the window, police said. A store employee watched the SUV as the witness went back inside the store and called the number. A person on the phone gave him the description of the suspect, and the witness subsequently called the police, according to the report.

The employee then approached the man in the SUV, which hadn't yet left the parking lot. The man shouted at the employee, "Leave me alone. You got your stuff back!" He then lifted his shirt to expose the grip of a handgun at his waistband, police said, before driving westbound through the parking lot.

According to the report, the employee then flagged down a responding police officer. Two other officers were dispatched to the neighborhood where, they believed, the suspect lived.

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The officers found the man and arrested him. He was transported to Santa Rita Jail, according to the police report.

Alcohol to Blame for Hit-and-Run. A little past 2 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, police were dispatched to the corner of Juana Avenue and East 14th Street regarding a hit-and-run accident that had just occurred at the intersection.

A witness to the collision was following the vehicle, described as a black Toyota pick-up truck, according to the police report. Another officer located the vehicle in the 900 block of East 14th Street and contacted the driver, a 51-year-old woman, police said.

The dispatched officer arrived on scene and watched as the second officer conducted a field sobriety test. He said he could smell alcohol on the woman, and that she was walking unsteadily and had droopy eyelids, according to the police report. 

She was placed under arrest and booked into Hayward City Jail.

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