Droid phone snatcher slips away despite police, helicopter search
Officers from three law enforcement agencies aided by a sheriff's helicopter conducted an all-out search Tuesday evening for a man who stole a Droid smartphone from a pedestrian in Palo Alto. He got away anyway.
At 5:51 p.m., the suspect approached a person on the 400 block of East Meadow Drive near Mitchell Park and asked to borrow the phone. When the victim handed over a Droid, the suspect pocketed it and rode off on a bicycle, Palo Alto police Agent Max Nielepko said.
Police believe the suspect had stolen the bike from the bed of a truck parked at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School a short time earlier.
Nielepko said a responding police officer spotted the suspect at El Camino Real and West Charleston Road and chased him on foot until he managed to escape through a condominium complex at El Camino Real and El Camino Way.
Los Altos and Mountain View officers helped set up a perimeter and Palo Alto police conducted a yard-to-yard search of the area, alerting nearby residents, Nielepko said. A Santa Clara County sheriff's helicopter that was monitoring the area provided assistance after hearing about the search over police radio frequencies, he added.
When asked after authorities called off the manhunt whether the response fit the crime, Nielepko said, "I think the helicopter is what threw more attention to this." He added that the response was both standard and appropriate.
"Whenever we see there's a threat to public
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safety, we're going to dedicate any resources we have to apprehend that person," he said.
"The threat to public safety would be an unknown person jumping through citizens' backyards."
The suspect is described as a slim black man between the ages of 16 and 25 with a thin mustache. He was wearing a black or red shirt, dark pants and green earrings, Nielepko said. Anyone with information regarding the case are asked to call Palo Alto police at 650-329-2413.
Officers from three law enforcement agencies aided by a sheriff's helicopter conducted an all-out search Tuesday evening for a man who stole a Droid smartphone from a pedestrian in Palo Alto. He got away anyway.
At 5:51 p.m., the suspect approached a person on the 400 block of East Meadow Drive near Mitchell Park and asked to borrow the phone. When the victim handed over a Droid, the suspect pocketed it and rode off on a bicycle, Palo Alto police Agent Max Nielepko said.
Police believe the suspect had stolen the bike from the bed of a truck parked at Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School a short time earlier.
Nielepko said a responding police officer spotted the suspect at El Camino Real and West Charleston Road and chased him on foot until he managed to escape through a condominium complex at El Camino Real and El Camino Way.
Los Altos and Mountain View officers helped set up a perimeter and Palo Alto police conducted a yard-to-yard search of the area, alerting nearby residents, Nielepko said. A Santa Clara County sheriff's helicopter that was monitoring the area provided assistance after hearing about the search over police radio frequencies, he added.
When asked after authorities called off the manhunt whether the response fit the crime, Nielepko said, "I think the helicopter is what threw more attention to this." He added that the response was both standard and appropriate.
"Whenever we see there's a threat to public
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safety, we're going to dedicate any resources we have to apprehend that person," he said.
"The threat to public safety would be an unknown person jumping through citizens' backyards."
The suspect is described as a slim black man between the ages of 16 and 25 with a thin mustache. He was wearing a black or red shirt, dark pants and green earrings, Nielepko said. Anyone with information regarding the case are asked to call Palo Alto police at 650-329-2413.
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