Police Reports: Thief Finds an Easy Safe to Crack

An employee of the convenience store and BP gas station at 12324 W. North Ave. reported that at about 10:45 p.m. Friday a bag of cash had been stolen from the store’s safe, which was unlocked at the time.

He told he had been getting ready to close for the night and had the safe unlocked with the door slightly ajar when a customer came in asking for help at a gas pump.

He went out to assist, he said, and when he returned, the safe was standing wide open and the money bag was gone.

The store manager arrived and reviewed surveillance video with police. It showed a man entering the store a moment after the clerk walked out, quickly checking the location of a second exit, then going straight to the safe. He is then seen leaving through the other exit.

In other recent incidents:

Sunday

A resident of the 4500 block of North 101st Street was issued a citation for continuing to allow his dog to run loose after police had given him a warning just the day before. Neighbors have complained that the dog has been a chronic problem in that it defecates in their yards.

Saturday

At 12:15 a.m., a resident of the 2500 block of North 67th Street reported that some time since 8 a.m. Friday someone had burglarized both his apartment and that of his upstairs neighbor. He told police he had arrived home about 10 minutes earlier and entered the rear common door, then saw that his apartment door was standing open. He went in, saw that property was missing, then went upstairs and found the door to open to his neighbors’ apartment, they being out of town. He then called police. Officers found pry marks on the doors, including the exterior one. The downstairs apartment was thoroughly ransacked, with a large flat-screen television ripped from its wall mount and several video game systems and other electronics stolen. Also missing were the resident’s Brooklyn baseball cap and his pair of Jordan 14 basketball shoes. Nothing, including similar electronic, appeared to have been disturbed in the upstairs apartment, although it could not be determined for certain whether or not anything had been taken.

A Menomonee Falls man reported that between midnight and 1 a.m. someone smashed a window in his car while it was in the main parking lot at Mo’s Irish Pub, 10842 Blue Mound Rd., and stole his computer bag containing his laptop and accessories including a firewall device.

Friday

At 11:30 a.m., the manager of , 6810 W. State St., reported that overnight someone tried to break into the shop. She had entered the front door at 9 a.m. to open for the day and did not notice until she went out the back door at 11:30 to run an errand that the outside door handle had been pried off. Someone had also written “Supercuts” on the door in permanent marker, which had never been there before.

A resident of the 8600 block of West Wright Street reported that some time on Tuesday someone had entered his unlocked garage and stolen his daughter’s bicycle.

Thursday

At 4:44 p.m., two Milwaukee women, one 23 and one 27, were arrested for retail theft at , 6700 W. State St., after they were caught trying to leave the store with five bottles of liquor concealed in their purses. They had been noticed when they entered carrying large, empty handbags and went straight to the liquor department. The looked around furtively, then one picked out two bottles, the other three, and they put them in their purses. Then they went to another aisle and picked up a bottle of soda and one of juice, which they paid for. They were stopped outside the store and detained until police arrived to arrest them.

Drug warrant yields little; pitbull is casualty

Wauwatosa police surrounded a home in the 10700 block of West Keefe Avenue at 6 p.m. Thursday and executed a search warrant for narcotics.

Four people were arrested, but only one rated a felony charge for “second subsequent possession of marijuana,” one misdemeanor charge, and the others were only ticketed for possession of small amounts of pot.

The Police Department deployed a Special Response Team, and a detective knocked on the door and announced, “Police, search warrant,” several times. In about 15 seconds, a woman opened the door with three dogs at her side, two of them smaller breeds and one a standard pitbull.

As officers entered and began to search the home, an officer heading up the stairs said the pitbull came at him threateningly, and when he decided it was not going to stop, he fired his shotgun from about 3 to 4 feet.

The wounded dog retreated to a bedroom, where officers, determining that no one was hiding inside, shut the door and waited for animal control officers to come and dispatch it.

Besides small amounts of marijuana – less than an ounce, all told – officers found a Hi Point .40-cal. pistol in the house, but the owner had a permit for it.

There were, however, signs that there was more drug activity going on in the house. Officers also found a large digital scale covered with marijuana residue, and a safe containing two large freezer bags – empty except for more drug residue.

According to Police Capt. Jeff Sutter, police policy is almost always to send a Special Response Team on a drug warrant.

“We want to err on the side of caution,” he said. “Based on the history of the house and the people in it, we thought it prudent.”