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Suspect sought in bus stop robberies
11/09/2012 11:49 AM by John M
Richmond Police detectives need the public’s help to find the man who committed several robberies at or near East End bus stops last weekend.
The robber appeared to target females who were alone and whose purses were in plain view. The armed robberies occurred from Saturday morning through Sunday afternoon:
- Saturday at 7:16 a.m. in the 1700 block of Mechanicsville Turnpike
- Saturday at 8:20 a.m. in the 2400 block of East Marshall Street
- Saturday at 10:10 p.m. in the 2800 block of Fairfield Avenue
- Saturday at 11:46 p.m. in the 1000 block of North 20th Street
- Sunday at 5:43 a.m. in the 1000 block of Mosby Avenue
- Sunday at 12:30 p.m. in the 3300 block of N Street
Detectives are asking anyone with any information about these crimes to call Crime Stoppers at 780-1000 or Detective John Grazioso at (804) 646-0672. Citizens can also text Crime Stoppers at 274637, using the key word “ITip” followed by your tip. Both Crime Stoppers methods are anonymous.
TAGGED: crime
is there any physical description of the suspect, available for publication? i would appreciate it if you have it. ty!
From the Times-Dispatch:
The suspect has been described as black, between 5-feet-8-inches and 5-10, and weighing between 160 and 200 pounds, said Richmond Police detective John Grazioso. In each instance, he wore a black, mid-length leather jacket, a black skullcap and displayed a black semiautomatic handgun.
East End bus stop armed robber may have struck for 7th time this month
http://www.timesdispatch.com/east-end-bus-stop-armed-robber-may-have-struck-for/article_893a3654-32fa-11e2-8544-001a4bcf6878.html
Has anyone checked with GRTC to see if this guy is riding the buses. Seems odd that they all occurred along the route. I wonder if he might be riding the route and then jumping off at the next stop when he sees a good target.
@ Alex
My girlfriend and I were the ones robbed yesterday evening. The guy was standing at the bus stop and got on and then immediately off a bus that had pulled up there as we were arriving at the stop. Police said they were going to check GRTC surveillance cameras. Also it’s apparently a different guy than the one suspected in previous bus stop robberies.
@busstop – so sorry you experienced this but glad you and your girlfriend were not injured.
@5 – so you were getting off the bus and he had been at the stop? When he saw you exiting, he changed his mind about boarding the bus? Sorry to hear about your bad luck and I hope you guys are ok. It sure would be great if the cops can bust these creeps soon.
Any other description you can give us that might help folks be on the lookout better? I realize it was probably pretty traumatic but the description that’s out there is pretty generic.
Also, if he got your iphones or other cellular phones, have you tried calling your cell company to see if they can trace the phone? Most new phones have tracking devices in them that they can use to pin down the location. I’ve noticed a lot of these guys seem to br taking traceable electronics which seems kind of dumb. Though I guess the sorts of folks who do this aren’t usually that bright anyway…
It sounds like the guy might also have been part of a pair that did another job farther north on 25th shortly before. In both cases there was a silver revolver and a guy with a red jacket.
This had better be RPD’s top priority right now as these guys are brazen as hell. It’s only a matter of time before this shit escalates if they can’t stop it.
@ Karen – Thanks, I’m also glad nothing happened beyond just a few things getting stolen.
@ Alex – Yeah, I suppose he changed his mind about boarding the bus. I didn’t think much of it at the time, though. I catch a bus from that stop almost every day. The only real glimpse I caught of him was when we were crossing the street and I wasn’t really paying attention to his outfit since I didn’t suspect he was about to rob us. Then we sat with our back to him and he approached from behind, hence the sparse details noted in the RTD article.
As for the IPhones (he stole both of ours), I attempted to have them tracked, but AT&T said they couldn’t do it unless we had the Navigation service (which we did not).
But yeah, I guess I would advise all the bus riders in the area to be extra aware of their surroundings and hopefully these guys get caught.
* I should note that we were approaching the bus stop and he was already there.
@8 – thanks for the additional details. Did you get more details on what exactly the navigation service is? Wanted to see if I could turn that on and it might be valuable to others to do the same. This might be a good way to catch these folks.
I do find it hard to believe that AT&T can’t track this stuff given how much data they have already. I bet if it came to sending spam to you they’d be all over it.
with the iPhone, you shouldn’t need an additional app. You can trace it with iCloud “find my phone”
@ Alex – The AT&T customer service rep told me that unless had the AT&T Navigator service (an extra charge) then they couldn’t track my phone.
@ just a neighbor – I had the phone for all of a month before the guy stole it. I hadn’t registered for iCloud or anything like that. I don’t know much about it.
@13 – I think it may be default setting if you have a newer phone. No app needed it sounds like:
http://ipod.about.com/od/usingios4/ht/Use-Find-My-Iphone-To-Locate-Lost-Or-Stolen-Iphone.htm
@12 – fuck AT&T. Sounds just like them to try to upsell something they should be offering their customers for free. If RPD is capable, this is much more likely to bear fruit than the neighborhood looking for a generic black man with a gun. Subpoena the phone companies RPD! Get into the 21st century!
There’s a free app out there called Find iPhone you can get. Sorry that this happened to you busstop. My wife’s phone was stolen several years ago and it drove me crazy that AT&T said they couldn’t track it. I’m betting if the president’s Blackberry was stolen, they’d find it pretty damn quick.
Just wondering what ever happened to the Church Hill crime watch? I used to get phone calls when something like this happened, but now I don’t seem to get them anymore?
Busstop – any chance you’d be willing to let me try tracking this phone for you? I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out a few ways to do it if you can enter in the numbers, etc. I could meet you somewhere and show you how to do it if you’d be up for that. Should only take a few minutes to try.
Ideally the police need to be trained in this but I think that it’s well beyond their repertoire of tricks (which seem to be limited), at least in Richmond. They weren’t able to solve that YouTube beating from a few years back and to my knowledge haven’t ever solved any stolen cell/laptop cases with tracking.
There was another one (bus stop robbery) this am.
Another robbery at East End bus stop; 8th such crime this month
http://www.timesdispatch.com/another-robbery-at-east-end-bus-stop-th-such-crime/article_6bdff71e-3882-11e2-8942-0019bb30f31a.html