Editorials

Pizza delivery  

robbers strike again 

Another pizza deliveryman was robbed while making his rounds Wednesday evening, according to Lt. Cynthia Harris of the Berkeley Police Department. 

The deliveryman was going to drop off six pizzas at an apartment building on the 1400 block of Seventh Street at around 6:45 p.m. Upon arriving, four young males emerged from some shrubbery. One wielded a semiautomatic handgun. 

The principal suspect put the gun to the victim’s neck and demanded his money. The suspects went through the victim’s pockets and took his cash, identification and other items, along with the pizza. 

The suspects are described as black males between the ages of 17 and 20. They were all wearing dark pants and dark, hooded, puffy jackets. 

On Jan. 17, three men held up a pizza deliveryman on the 1600 block of Parker Street at around 8:45 p.m. The suspects in this case – black males around the age of 21 – similarly hid in bushes before confronting the deliverer. They told the victim that they had a gun, but the victim did not see it. The suspects made off with the pizza, cash and the victim’s watch. 

Harris said that she did not know if the recent cases were related. 

On June 19, 2001, an deliveryman was robbed of two large pies by a shotgun-wielding man on the 1600 block of Harmon Street. 

Man held up at BHS 

A man was robbed at gunpoint on the Berkeley High School campus after hours on Monday, according to Lt. Harris. 

The victim was walking home along Milvia Street when a person came out of a driveway and asked him for a dollar. The victim said that he had no money, and kept walking. 

He turned to cut through the high school grounds. After getting about halfway across, he saw the man who had asked him for a dollar approaching with a large, black automatic pistol in his hand. 

The suspect pointed the gun at the victim and told him to hand over his money. The victim took his money out of his wallet and dropped it on the ground. The suspect then forcibly removed the victim’s backpack from him and told him to walk toward Martin Luther King, Jr., Way. 

The suspect fled on foot toward Milvia Street. 

The suspect is described as a black male in his late teens or early 20s. He was around 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighed about 140 pounds. He wore a black stocking cap, a heavy, green, waist-length jacket and dark pants.