A prolific crew of house burglars using a black Mercedes to ferry themselves to their jobs and the rear sliding doors of their victims to make entry returned to the 24/680 for the second straight night Saturday, striking at last three times in Orinda and Moraga before fleeing for the Caldecott Tunnel with police in pursuit.
Close readers might recognize the crew’s methods from a previous night’s work in Walnut Creek and Alamo, burglarizing at least four homes before they were surprised by a resident in Alamo and chased from the home.
On Saturday, apparently, they staged a comeback – to Lamorinda.
Like Friday’s foray the crew (three suspected members) struck hard and fast, hitting at least two homes in Orinda and one in Moraga before the Mercedes was spotted maneuvering through Lafayette after a Corte le Rado resident reported a break-in at their home in Moraga.
A short-lived chase ensued with the Mercedes running for the Caldecott at speeds in excess of 95mph, police air and ground units in pursuit. The vehicle was trailed as far as Albany but is believed to have eluded police.
Additional break-ins were subsequently reported on Overhill Road and Southwood Drive in Orinda.
After Friday’s exploits in Walnut Creek, police there said the thieves appeared to be targeting darkened residences during evening hours when the occupants stood a good chance of being out for dinner.
Jesus…. what have we done to these lpeople???
These guys must be good. We know they’re lucky.
Definitely slippery.
Two nights in a row. Just guessing, but something tells me there will be a lot of cops out tonight.
Not likely, budgets are tight and city leaders do not like their police.
Firestone 11R
So basically alameda county cops are completely worthless. Everytime the chase goes thru the tunnel the criminals magically disappear.
Do you think the police have made some type of deal with the criminals there?
I know if 2 events in Oakland very scary both roughly 90 min response.
Somebody needs to address this game of letting the perps go. Sorry there is no excuse when they are going to funnel to the tunnel, inept. I guess maybe they have no police left since the whole we failed our psych evals and you caught us.
A lot to unpack in there, YHHH so we’ll just say that stopping a car running from you at 95mph+ is harder than they make it look in the movies. We’ll let your comments re: law enforcement attitude to “perps” in their county stand for any local LEOs to comment on. We know they’re reading, and it’s better that it come from them…
NEWS24/680
Well I apologize it was very rude. I just find it quite frustrating that it seems most of the time when these events run through the caldecott to Alameda county the criminals get away poof. It seems a natural gore point and that going through the tunnel would make them easier to catch than flying down a bunch of random streets in neighboring cities.
Just wondered if there was some type of thing / understanding when they had commited crimes in other counties Alameda wasn’t interested in pursuing
Thanks for setting me straight, and I do hope some of these criminals fleeing into the tunnel are able to be caught some day.
YHHH – not particularly offensive by any stretch, and a fairly common perception.
Many “civilians” seem to think the Caldecott represents a sort of unofficial Demilitarized Zone for local law enforcement. If you can make it there, they reason, you get a free pass to run in Alameda County. We see where folks might see that but we must point out that bringing a speeding vehicle to a stop in the confined spaces of a major transportation artery is ill-advised and probably against policy. So they get through but – again counter to what many seem to believe – the agencies do talk with one another and arrests are made. As always, we invite local LEO’s to weigh in on the subject.
While I often express an opinion about local law enforcment (CoCo & Alameda), these are just my views. I can tell you that the official policy of San Mateo County SO is that vehicle pursuits will be discontinued at 80 MPH unless a violent crime is involved, that means no chasing burglars.
Firestone 11R
95? Amateurs. My Mercedes 580 EQS does way more than that. Of course, I don’t need it to because I’m not some low life criminal running from the police.
Careful. Greta reads us…
We count our constable on patrol blessings here in Moraga. Not like the hot mess in Alameda generally and Oakland specifically for more than a decade now.
There are actually reasons they may let crooks slide from time to time.
Such as?
Sometimes little fish are let go so they lead the cops to bigger fish.
Is a description of the perps available?
Nothing that would be helpful at this point, R. Very general descriptions so far.