[EBB Sightings] Car Break in at Lake Merritt

There's been a rash of car break-ins lately around
Lake Merrit. 
I was one of the latest victims this morning with my
car parked on Boden St. nr Lakeshore, across the
street from the Catholic church.  
Situation was this.  2 black males were observed this
morning sitting on the bus stop bench at Lakeshore and
Boden.  Around 7:30 they apparently smashed the
windows of 3 cars along the south side of Boden.
In the 1st and 3rd cars wallets were taken - idiot
jogging boys who should know better- and my car in the
center had the Fastrak transponder removed as well as
a few dollars in parking change. (I had gone to my
SO's place last night and the parking around Merritt
St. was non-existent so I parked on Boden).
A little later on 2 women parked on Beacon and were
headed to the lake.  A neighbor reported the 2
suspects breaking and entering into the women's car. 
Police lucked out and detained the 2 suspects who were
in a nearby car.  Turns out they had dumped one
wallet onto the street near my car and had in their
possession my transponder, another wallet and the
women's purses. So now they got formerly arrested. One
was on probation, the other a kid - late teens early
20's .  So hopefully that will put an end to this
spree for a while.   But I think it's prudent to make
sure that you park on the main drags instead of the
side streets and to not leave any valuables in your
vehicles.   The fact is that the pickings were pretty
good - 3 out of 4 cars yielded wallets or purses and
I'm sure that's not lost on any other robbers. It's
also the christmas season and robberies tend to go up
with kids out of school and people looking for
spending money.

BTW the Fastrak transponder is useless to any driver
who steals one - mainly because it could be made to
trigger a signal to photograph the car, its occupants
and the license plate that had it.

-Marcus

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