Features

Fowl delivery 

Berkeley police and members of the Berkeley Boosters began passing out $5,000 worth of turkeys and other Thanksgiving fare Tuesday morning. 

The food was purchased with the proceeds of the department’s annual Turkey Ride, where officers bike from the City by the Bay to Lake Tahoe, raising pledge money as they pedal. 

This year officers raised $10,000, dispersing half the proceeds this week with the rest to be distributed before Christmas, said BPD spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan. 

Bottled 

A 19-year-old Hayward man refused to tell Berkeley Police who bashed him in the head with a bottle on Nov. 14, said Officer Galvan. 

Police learned of the attack only when an emergency room nurse at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Hayward made an obligatory report at 5 p.m. that day. 

The only thing police were able to learn was that the assault had taken place in the 1900 block of San Pablo Avenue earlier that day. 

He delivers 

A pizza delivery man toting a pair of pies to an address near the corner of Seventh Street and Bancroft Way was forced to hand over not only pizzas but cash when he was confronted on the street by four young toughs just after midnight on Nov. 15. 

PlayStation bust 

With all the furor over the must-have, much-hyped, just-released PlayStation 3, one Berkeley man just couldn’t resist when he saw a 19-year-old employee of Touchless Car Wash at 2176 Kittredge St. proudly displaying his new acquisition to fellow workers shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday. 

But the co-workers weren’t about to take the crime sitting down, so they took off after the fleeing bandit, running him to earth at the corner of Allston Way and Shattuck Avenue, where Berkeley Police traded the PlayStation for a nice pair of shiny handcuffs. 

The fellow was a 20-year-old Berkeley resident with a zeal to play. 

“If you have to fight to buy one, then fight to keep it, I don’t want one,” said Officer Galvan. 

Takes Wallet 

A lone gunman wielding a semiautomatic pistol braced a 25-year-old El Cerrito man as he was walking along the 1400 block of San Pablo Avenue shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday. The gunman demanded the victim’s wallet, and once he was handed it, he headed off with both the wallet and the cash inside. 

Last seen, he was headed for the hills and his victim was making haste to a nearby liquor store, where he called police. 

The suspect was described as a teenager wearing a black jacket. 

Wallet rejected 

A pair of robbers, one making with the old I’ve-gotta-pistol-in-my-pocket routine, decided not to keep the wallet they stole from a 47-year-old Berkeley man. The pair of heisters spotted their intended victim near the corner of Channing Way and Edward Street just before 1 a.m. Saturday. 

Confronted with the choice of his money or his life, the fellow handed over his wallet. After extracting the cash, one of the bandits threw the wallet back. 

The robbers, one in his 20s and the other in his teens, were last seen beating the pavement eastbound on Channing, said Officer Galvan. 

Rape reported 

A nurse at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Oakland called Berkeley police at 10 p.m. Saturday to report that a young Berkeley woman had come into the emergency room for treatment following a sexual assault. 

Officer Galvan declined to give further details, citing the fact that the victim was underage, other than to say the incident “appeared not to involve strangers or an abduction.” 

The incident allegedly occurred in the 1900 block of Haste Street, according to the police department’s Community Crimeview website. 

Campus robbery 

UC Berkeley Police report that a trio of robbers attacked a man as he was walking along Sports Lane on campus very early Wednesday morning, listening to tunes on his iPod. 

The trio approach the young man from behind shortly before 12:42 a.m. and began to pummel him, taking his iPod in the process. 

Once they had the goodie, the robbers ran off towards Dwight Way, possibly escaping in a 1990s-era beige four-door sedan. 

Their victim received only minor injuries, according to the official report by the UCPD Criminal Investigation Bureau.