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SLIDESHOW: A suspected thief, one of five or six men, used a flashlight to peer into a parked car on South Court in Palo Alto on Jan. 29, 2022. Courtesy Palo Alto Police Department. -
SLIDESHOW: A suspected thief, one of five or six men, used a flashlight to peer into a parked car on South Court in Palo Alto on Jan. 29, 2022. Courtesy Palo Alto Police Department. -
The suspect SUV in a string of thefts from cars in Palo Alto is captured on this surveillance video taken from Talisman Court on Jan. 30, 2022. Courtesy Palo Alto Police Department. -
The suspect SUV in a string of thefts from cars in Palo Alto is captured on this surveillance video taken from Talisman Court on Jan. 30, 2022. Courtesy Palo Alto Police Department. -
The suspect SUV in a string of thefts from cars is captured on this surveillance video on South Court in Palo Alto on Jan. 29, 2022. Courtesy Palo Alto Police Department. -
The suspect SUV in a string of thefts from cars is captured on this surveillance video on South Court in Palo Alto on Jan. 29, 2022. Courtesy Palo Alto Police Department.
A nonprofit has offered a $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest in an interrupted burglary late Saturday night, when a resident chased people stealing from cars and was shot at by one of the alleged thieves.
A police dispatcher received a call on Saturday at about 11:58 p.m. regarding a shot fired during an interrupted theft from a vehicle in the 3600 block of South Court in the Fairmeadow neighborhood, police said in a press release. Five or six people had fled in a SUV. The resident was not hit by the gunfire, he told police.
Officers responded to the area immediately, as did the Palo Alto Fire Department, as a precautionary measure, but could not locate the individuals.
The resident, a man in his 30s, noticed lights shining in the street outside his home. He saw multiple people walking down the street with flashlights who were shining the lights into parked cars and trying to open car doors.
The man went outside to confront them and found a person standing by the open driver’s door of his car in the driveway. He chased the thieves on foot as they ran to a waiting getaway SUV. The man heard what sounded like a gunshot and thought he saw the impact of the round on the pavement in front of him. He never saw the weapon, police said.
The SUV fled north on South Court and then east on East Meadow Drive. Nothing was missing from the victim’s unlocked car, but the thieves rummaged through the center console, police said.
Officers located an expended casing from a .40-caliber handgun at the scene and will be processing it for evidence, they said. A neighborhood check found at least two other unlocked cars on South Court that had been opened and rummaged through.
The man told police he saw five or six men, about 5 feet and 9 inches tall with larger builds. Two were wearing hooded sweatshirts — one gray and one yellow. They fled in a dark-colored, full-size SUV.
Later in the night, at 12:45 a.m. on Jan. 30, police received another call from a resident in the 700 block of Talisman Court reporting that they had reviewed surveillance camera footage. The images showed that at about 11:20 p.m. a group of suspects had been rummaging through unlocked vehicles in that location. Police believe it is likely they are the same people seen on South Court, which is about a mile away from Talisman Court. The suspect vehicle appears to be an SUV with chrome rims.
Police are actively investigating these incidents. They recommend always locking car doors overnight to prevent thefts, and always calling police promptly to report suspicious activity.
The nonprofit Mothers Against Murder has offered a $20,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest, police said Tuesday.
“We hope that this reward will spur someone with information about this dangerous suspect and his accomplices to come forward and speak with our detectives,” police Chief Robert Jonsen said in a statement.
Overnight thefts from vehicles — where there is no forced entry to the car because the doors are left unlocked — and auto burglaries, when a car is forcibly entered, such as through a window smash, are common in any city in the Bay Area, police said. But shots being fired during the commission of such crimes are rare.
“There have been no similar incidents in Palo Alto or neighboring cities recently of which we are aware where a shot was fired,” police said.
Police are working to confirm how many cases may be connected to these individuals from the overnight incidents; it often takes people time to notice items missing from an unlocked car unless there is an overt sign that the vehicle has been rummaged through, police said.
Victims of an auto burglary or theft from a vehicle can call the police 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413 or file an online report at cityofpaloalto.org/onlinereports.
Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call Palo Alto police at 650- 329-2413. Anonymous tips can be emailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent by text message or voicemail to 650-383-8984.
