Police Blotter: Car Seat Thieves Want Them in Tan

Back on the crime beat in Manhattan Beach, the news is not dull. Here are a few highlights from recent weeks.

On the car break-in watch, thieves seem to be focusing not only on what’s on top of the upholstery, but sometimes the upholstery itself. That was the case in a vehicle burglary that took place on March 7. A woman parked her 2007 GMC Yukon Denali in front of her residence in the 500 block of 5th Street at about 3:15 p.m. When she returned to the SUV about half an hour later, the trunk was slightly ajar. Missing from the interior were two pairs each of Joe’s jeans and Kate Spade sunglasses, plus the third row of tan leather seats. A neighbor noticed a charcoal-gray, windowless van with a roof extension park behind the Denali. Thinking the two male occupants who stepped from the vehicle were probably overseeing a nearby construction project, she went about her business. Contacted later by the police, she thought she would be able to identify one of the suspects.

A day after this incident, leather-seat-fixated bandits struck again. Another woman reported that she returned to her Chevy Tahoe in the 100 block of 27th Place at around 2:30 p.m. to discover her third-row tan leather seat had been stolen. She’d remote-locked the SUV four days earlier in an operation that also armed the vehicle.

In other car news, vandals left the seats alone when they smashed the driver-side window of an Audi in the 3300 block of Bell Avenue on March 2. But they took the owner’s manual, vehicle registration and proof of insurance card.

Vindictive vandals used a key or other sharp-edged object to score the hoods and some sides of 12 vehicles in the Toyota dealership lot at 1500 Sepulveda on the night of Feb. 26-27. Day Manager Chris Parks reported the incident, which occurred after the business closed for the evening. Repair costs were estimated at about $10,000.

Yikes! More missing bikes—and a “hot” heating unit

Perhaps it’s skyrocketing gas prices, or just the prospect of good weather. Whatever it is, bike thieves seem to find good pickings in Manhattan Beach.

A thief snipped a 30-foot security cable securing boys’ and girls’ bikes in front of REI at 1800 Rosecrans Avenue and stole a Novara Tractor bicycle shortly after employees set the bikes on display on March 1.

Three days later, a man left his unsecured bicycle propped against a pillar, outside Old Navy, REI’s neighbor, while he and his friends went inside to locate a tool to repair a flat rear tire. Returning to the bike a minute later, they found it missing. A passerby told them he’d seen a man riding a bicycle at top speed through the parking lot. After attempting to pursue the thief on foot, the owner reported the loss to police. The Schwinn may be one of a kind: blue handles, orange-rimmed tires, Pokemon cards in the spokes and a flat rear tire. A white male in his late teens, last seen wearing a Redondo Union High School sweatshirt and silver and black baseball cap, is suspected.

And there’s more. A locked black and white Schwinn beach cruiser-style bike was reported stolen from just south of the Manhattan Beach Pier sometime after 6:45 and before 10 p.m. on March 5. Four days later, an employee at Olive Garden on Sepulveda locked his bike to a railing outside the restaurant and returned at just after 9 p.m. to find it gone.

Bikes, we get, but heating units? One of the latter was swiped from a detached garage at about 6 p.m. on March 7. It was discovered missing the next day when it was supposed to be installed.