Angelino Heights police activity this afternoon

A post on the Angelino Heights Yahoo! forum today caught our attention, and you may have noticed the helicopter and police activity. Here’s why:

At the request of Ed of Select Patrol, I’m just sending out a quick set of details of the police activity that occurred on the 1300 block of Carroll Avenue starting around 3:10pm today. All of this information is relayed from Ed and one or two other neighbours who were around.

Around 3:10 this afternoon, a young woman was dropped off near the intersection of Bellevue and West Kensington. She approached another woman that was walking down the sidewalk and ripped a gold chain from this woman’s neck before either walking or running west in the direction of Edgeware. Ed witnessed the incident and followed the robber up Bellevue to Edgeware and onto Carroll with the victim of the attack in pursuit on foot.

When the suspected thief reached the corner of East Edgeware and Carroll, it seems she returned the necklace to the victim in an attempt to claim she had committed no crime. Ed was in touch with LAPD dispatch at this point and was relaying details of the incident and the location of the alleged thief. After some remarkably loud and histrionic behaviour (claims that the took the necklace because she was pregnant and needed the money for neonatal care, etc.) that seems to have been an attempt to get the victim and Ed to leave her alone, the suspect then approached 1320 Carroll while wailing aloud.

At this point in time, roughly 3:20pm, the police patrol cars were inbound and there was an LAPD helicopter circling. Within a few minutes, the patrol cars had arrived, the suspect was in handcuffs being questioned and the victim was returning to Carroll now that there was a police presence.

And that was pretty much the end of the drama.

One neighbour did claim that he saw a suspect vehicle parked near the intersection of Douglas and Carroll with only the driver in it and it may have been the vehicle that dropped off the alleged thief and was waiting to pick her up. Ed and at least one LAPD officer think this may be the pattern of a group of robbers. As always, you should keep a healthy eye out for cars that seem to be traveling too slowly for traffic or that seem to be passing pedestrians repeatedly. It is likely that the victim in this case was spotted from the car and may have been watched for a short time before she was mugged.

Just sending this out as a favor to Ed. I have related the events as they were conveyed to me as accurately as I can but I only witnessed the last few minutes of the incident. As a result, there are sure to be errors. My apologies in advance.

Stay safe out there!