Features

Shattered Glass at Amoeba 

A customer took offense when he was accused of switching tags on CDs at Amoeba Music Friday, and on being ordered to leave the Telegraph Avenue shop, he wrapped up his hand and punched his fist through a store window. The vandal then fled north on foot, eluding store security, but not the police who detained him on Durant Avenue. Thomas Williams, 20, of Fairfield was arrested for vandalism and an outstanding arrest warrant. 

Telegraph Robbery 

A man walked into a Telegraph Avenue tattoo parlor late Tuesday night, grabbed money from an unattended cash register and raced out the door. A clerk called police, and after their search ended when UC police arrested Rodney Walker, 19, of Oakland for burglary and a probation violation. 

Nonprofit Trashed 

Burglars stole a 200-pound safe and ransacked the offices of a Berkeley nonprofit during the Christmas holiday, tipping over desks, ripping out phones and rifling through file cabinets, stopping only to enjoy some holiday maraschino cherries and ginger ale left in the refrigerator, employees said. 

“It was just a mess,” reports Juliette Majot, executive director of the International Rivers Network, a nonprofit that works to halt dam projects in undeveloped countries. 

The biggest loss, however, was the 3’ x 3’ safe filled with holiday donation checks that burglars hauled out of the 1847 Berkeley Way office over the holiday weekend. 

Majot estimated IRN lost about $2,000 in donation checks, though she expects contributors to replenish the funds. No cash was stored in the safe, and the burglars opted to leave behind computers. 

By Monday employees had gathered up the empty soda bottles and cherry jar from the floor and otherwise restored order to their office and remained determined to push on. 

“This makes you appreciate what you have and how easy it is to lose,” Majot said. “We’ll just have to buy a new safe and bolt this one to the ground.”  

Flower Pots Tossed 

A resident of the 2000 block of Ward Street called police Tuesday afternoon to complain that an acquaintance was throwing objects at her house and vandalizing her flower pots. The victim refused to press charges against the purported vandal and police said they couldn’t confirm if anyone was actually throwing flower pots or other objects. 

Armed Robbery 

A gunman robbed a Berkeley teenager as he walked along the 1300 block of Virginia Street late Tuesday afternoon, stealing the youth’s wallet before he fled east towards the North Berkeley Bart station.