Features

Carjacked 

A pair of brazen bandits robbed a 28-year-old Berkeley man of his wallet and took his car on a two-block joyride before abandoning it to flee further by means unknown. 

It was just before 1:20 a.m. Saturday and the Berkeley man had just pulled up to park across the street from his home in the 2300 block of Derby Street, when two young men walked up to his car. 

One yanked open the driver’s side door and pulled him out as the other yelled “Gimme your wallet!” 

The man complied, and the pair then leapt into his car, a Toyota Scion, and sped off. 

Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan said the car was recovered two blocks away. 

Two men matching the bandits’ descriptions—young men, one in a black hoodie and the other wearing a brown one— were apprehended, but the victim was unable to make an ID, Galvan said. 

Armed robbery 

A armed robber brandishing a small folding knife pulled two separate capers minutes apart in the Telegraph Avenue district early Saturday morning, according to UC Berkeley Police Chief Victoria Harrison. 

The first incident was reported at 4:05 a.m., when Berkeley police were called to the intersection of Dwight Way and Hillegass Avenue. They found a man who said he’d just been robbed of his valuables. 

A minute later, Berkeley police were called again, this time by a woman who reported being robbed of a small sum of cash by the fellow near the corner of Dwight Way and Telegraph. 

The suspect is described as a short (5’4” to 5’6”) African-American man in his early 20s sporting a light-colored stone in an earring in his left ear who wore a gold jacket and carried an umbrella. 

Bogus bill 

When a 30-year-old Oakland man tried to pass a bogus $100 bill in Thalassa Billiards at 2367 Shattuck Ave. this weekend, an alert employee spotted the fake and called police. 

The counterfeit C-note passer was booked on suspicion of hanging bad paper and for violation of his parole, Galvan said.