package theft

“Active Capital Hill Package Thefts with an Arrest” Recognize Any of These Items?

By Prince Of Petworth

From MPD Tuesday night:

“Today members of the First District Crime Suppression Team were on patrol early in the day on the look-out for package thieves in the Capitol Hill-East area and observed several suspicious acts.

At approximately 1108 AM, one officer encountered two men that seemed to be working together in the 400 block of 11th Street NE. The officer saw the two men walking through the block appearing to look into cars and he set up nearby to observe them for actual criminal behavior beyond the merely suspicious.

One of the two men then walked up to the building at 410 11th Street NE and sit down beside a large package. When the man opened the package, the lookout noticed the officer and the men fled in different directions. The package that was opened was left behind.

When fleeing the man discarded a hedge trimmer that he had either just stolen or had been carrying to reduce the suspicious nature of his behavior approaching homes. He also discarded a backpack containing a large silver foil “Prepared Meal Service” package such as SunBasket, HelloFresh, or BlueApron might send. Officers were unable to determine from which home he had stolen that meal service delivery. (more…)

“The Fedora Bandit”

By Prince Of Petworth

“Dear PoPville,

I’ve seen various posts about package thieves on foot. Yesterday I was the victim of a drive-by package theft. By a guy rocking a fedora who will now be known as the Fedora Bandit.

He was driving a greyish, late-model minivan with a large dent on the passenger side. He pulled over, walked up to the door of the house, grabbed the package, loaded it in his van, and drove off. He is a middle-aged, burly guy (maybe 5’8) with a white goatee and a slight limp in his right leg.

I’ve reported the theft and shared the video with MPD.”

Also:

“Dear PoPville,

I was writing about an issue with Fed Ex. Basically my fiancé and I live in an 8 unit condo building off of Georgia Ave NW and Park Road. We have experienced numerous problems with delivery personnel leaving packages outside the building which inevitably are stolen or lost. Worst thing about it is when you contact FedEx they’re like, the package says it was left “on porch” or “at front door” which both equate to the street. Then they say you don’t get a refund because delivery was made- even if it wasn’t. Then there’s little recourse unless you buy from a merchant that believes your story.

Just curious if there are other Petworth residents dealing with similar delivery person issues. Some other similar instances have occurred when UPS and Amazon drivers but not as frequent as FedEx. A few unit owners in our building have also experienced similar issues as well. Maybe getting the word out will cause something to change. *we can hope*”

It is indeed very easy to steal packages.

By Prince Of Petworth

A reader writes from the 2100 block of 11th Street, NW:

“Looks like the guy was waiting across the street (inside the gated area of the common area of the Beauregard condo building) for the UPS guy to leave after dropping off the packages (we saw this from their security camera). So he comes over to my unit, grabs a box from upstairs, and two more boxes from downstairs. He takes them to the alley behind Beauregard, comes back to my house, grabs the 4th package. Takes it back to the alley behind Beauregard takes out all the stuff and leaves the empty boxes there. The still shots of him is from the security camera of the Beauregard.”

“A few minutes later we saw him walking down the alley, now with several Amazon packages”

By Prince Of Petworth

“Dear PoPville,

Our condo building, on the 1000 block of Harvard St NW, has been having an ongoing issue with package thefts.

Saturday afternoon, a man approached the back door to our building and rattled the door repeatedly. When we came into the hallway, to investigate the noise, he took off.

A few minutes later we saw him walking down the alley, now with several Amazon packages. When he noticed us watching he changed directions (it appeared he was originally going behind parked cars – I’m assuming to open the packages and ditch the boxes) and instead kept walking. (more…)

“Recently, the area’s seen a huge increase in the number of package thefts reported”

By Prince Of Petworth

“Dear PoPville,

My husband and I live in the 1500 block of 5th St, NW, in Shaw. Recently, the area’s seen a huge increase in the number of package thefts reported in the Third District. In fact, on the first day that we installed a security camera, we saw someone stealing packages from our front porch (it happened on 1/5/17). We filed a police report but haven’t had any luck identifying the person responsible.

On March 16, 2017, we were struck again by package thieves – this time they were two young black men (late teens or early 20s). I’ve attached the video of this latest left in hopes of drawing attention to this disturbing trend and to hopefully identify the perpetrators. In the video it looks like one of them has a DC Water ID tag hanging from his pants’ pocket. Please let us know if you recognize these two individuals!”

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