Crime & Safety
Police Calls: Clerk Stands Up to Man With Gun
All in about 24 hours: A robbery attempt at JP Liquors fails, and police stop two local women on suspicion of stealing alcohol.
It appears that the hoodie-wearing bandit is moving out of downtown and trying his luck in south Los Altos.
Saturday night, he came up empty-handed at JP Liquors in Loyola Corners. More on that in a moment.
The weekend was, in fact, unusually active in Los Altos with two incidents: The attempted robbery Saturday with the very familiar suspect, and a hot burglary the night before that resulted in the arrest of a Mountain View woman and a Palo Alto woman.
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Los Altos Police said Monday that JP Liquors at 996 Loraine is the second liquor store to get held up in recent weeks. Los Altos Police Sgt. Cameron Schearer described the incident, which was reported at 8:56 p.m. on Saturday night:
A white male in his 20’s entered JP Liquors and went to the customer counter. He pointed a black handgun at the clerk and demanded money. Clerk refused to give him money so suspect left the business.
Just like that? Apparently so.
Find out what's happening in Los Altoswith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The suspect was wearing a black hoodie, black ski mask, and black gloves, Sgt. Shearer said, and was "probably the same suspect as the downtown robberies," which include Standard Liquor on First Street, Comerica Bank and Bank of the West.
Friday night started with the alleged theft of alcohol at 8:25 p.m. from Andronico's at Rancho Shopping Center. Sgt. Shearer said it started when two women entered the store and stole alcohol. They were stopped by the manager, but fled before just before the police arrived.
Police officers spotted the car leaving the parking lot, Shearer said, and tried to stop it but the car sped off. The police tracked down the vehicle a couple of streets away and two suspects were taken into custody.
The second suspect arrested was Michaela Carson, 18, of Mountain View, who was booked at the jail for burglary and possession of controlled substance for sale.
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