For those in San Francisco - Laptop Robberies

Mods - please move this thread to somewhere else that you feel is more appropriate, thanks!

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/08/LAPTOP.TMP

A San Francisco finance manager stopped in at a Mission District cafe and was tapping on his laptop as he enjoyed his coffee just before noon on a Thursday. Suddenly, he was under siege.

"I looked up, and I saw this guy leaning into me as if he was asking a question,'' he said. "I leaned forward, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone fiddling with the computer cord. I tried to stand up, and as I stepped back, he stabbed me in the chest.''

The attack marked a violent turn in a wave of crime that has hit the city -- the "hot zones" frequented by wireless laptop users are becoming hot spots for laptop robberies.

The 40-year-old San Francisco victim of the March 16 attack suffered a partially collapsed lung and was hospitalized for six days. The two suspects fled with his Apple PowerBook, worth $2,500.

"This poor guy, who got stabbed, all he did was kind of stand up ... and almost instantaneously the guy stabbed him,'' said Inspector Robert Lynch of the San Francisco police robbery detail. "The whole thing was over in 15 seconds.''

Police say normally quiet cafes are becoming hunting grounds for laptop bandits.

"Now that we have these hot zones, people are bringing laptops out in the street, using them in public cafes,'' said police Lt. John Loftus of the robbery detail.

San Francisco police statistics show a disturbing trend. Just 18 laptop computer robberies were logged in 2004, but the figure jumped to 48 last year. There were 18 as of the end of March, a pace that could reach 70 crimes this year.

"It's a changing culture, and crime is following it,'' Loftus said. "To the criminal element, this is a valuable piece of equipment that they can quite easily cash in on -- even otherwise law-abiding people are tempted to buy $3,000 laptops for $200 to $300 on the street.''

"Where else do you have a thousand-dollar item sitting on a table in a coffee shop?''

So far, San Francisco appears to the only major Bay Area city to be hit by the problem. San Jose has been hit by laptop thefts, but it has yet to experience many of the robberies. "We haven't seen it yet,'' said Sgt. Nick Muyo of the San Jose police.

Palo Alto hasn't had any, and Berkeley, another hot zone for Internet cafes, had only one such crime about a year ago, investigators said. Oakland police investigators had not heard of any such crimes, either.

San Francisco's Western Addition area has been hard hit this year, with 11 robberies so far. Park Station Capt. John Ehrlich, who oversees the area, said he has met with the community, giving the message that people need to fasten down their computers and back up their data.

The victim in San Francisco's Mission Creek Cafe stabbing, who requested that his name not be used, said since he was attacked, his friends from New York have urged him to go back there. It's safer, they say.

"I was lucky. It was the only place he could have stabbed me where it didn't hit a heart or other organ,'' he said. Still, he said, his chest cavity filled with blood. As for the information on his laptop, he wisely had backed it up on a disk after he heard a friend had lost data.

Lynch said a videotape at the cafe was not much use in the investigation, and police have little to go on.

"One (suspect) was roughly 15, one was roughly 20, that was it -- it's really frustrating,'' Lynch said.

Lynch said stolen computers are sold on the street and even over the Internet. "They go to U.N. Plaza, where it's like a stolen-goods bazaar. All you have to do is drive by, you see them out there.''

Lynch said people working on the high-priced computers are easy targets.

"You walk by any Starbucks and you see people with a laptop, it's so tempting for the crooks. They walk in, right on top of the person, and the person has all their attention on the laptop. They snatch it right out from underneath their fingertips.

"The word is out with crooks in general,'' Lynch said.

Some cafes have taken precautions, installing security leashes for laptops and even posting employees to act as observers at doors. Lynch said a leash would prevent some thefts. But posting someone at the door could be risky. Lynch said that in Europe, video monitors are posted and signs warn patrons that they are being watched.

Lynch said resisting can be risky. "It's a tough call -- I would fight to maintain my laptop, but you run the risk of ending up like this guy, getting stabbed.''

"We don't need to scare people,'' Loftus emphasized. "People just need to be careful with their laptops.''

Police are considering using police decoys in hard-hit areas. "It's hard to do a stakeout,'' Capt. Ehrlich said, "because it's not happening with any regularity in time or place.'' Besides, such operations are costly in resources, he said. "It's a lot of lattes.''

 

As someone who lives on the "other" side of the Bay currently but has spent most of my time since '89 in SF this is a big "Ouch!!!!" -- getting (almost) terminally mugged for your laptop is not the way one wants to plan for a personal defense zone....

 

That's scary, there's a lot you can do to protect your laptop when you're away such as locking it down, but if held up by knife or gun point, you just have to give the laptop to a thief. One innovative thing a guy in our forums did with his ThinkPad z60m was put bumper stickers on the top of his brand new laptop to make it look "cheap" and deter thiefs. Check his review out here http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2777 with a picture halfway down. I'm sure thiefs would steal a pretty PowerBook right away, but an ugly bumper stickered black ThinkPad? Not likely.

 

Some good news! They caught those thugs:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/13/BAG99I86DK1.DTL

San Francisco police arrested a man they say is responsible for at least three laptop robberies in the city's Western Addition in the past two weeks, part of a recent rash of crimes targeting the high-priced portable computers.

Jeremy Benjamin, 21, of Oakland, was arrested and charged Wednesday with three counts of armed robbery and weapons possession and was being held in San Francisco county jail on $285,000 bail.

Acting on information from informants, officers from the San Francisco police Gang Task Force and Northern District station conducted a surveillance operation in the Western Addition and arrested Benjamin at 7 a.m., police said.

Police say victims were carrying laptop bags and were approached on the street and held up, as opposed to the more prevalent robberies targeting victims who have their machines open while they are using them in Internet cafes.

In addition to arresting Benjamin, police arrested two San Francisco men they described as associates of Benjamin. Calvin Johnson, 19, and Victor Guy, 21, were arrested and booked on weapons violations.

"These are street robberies by a crew that appears to have been exclusively in the Northern District,'' said Lt. John Loftus of the San Francisco police robbery detail. "They were targeting people waiting for Muni, pedestrians walking around in the area -- these things are very valuable and it's a quick turnover.''

Loftus said police have evidence that the laptops allegedly taken by Benjamin were sold quickly on the street.

In each robbery, Benjamin escaped with computers each worth between $2,500 and $3,000, Loftus said. So far, none of the computers has been recovered, but police say they have recovered laptop cases and other evidence tying Benjamin to the robberies.

Although Benjamin has so far been charged with three robberies, authorities believe he was responsible for another two laptop robberies in the area of McAllister and Laguna streets.

Police statistics show a wave of laptop thefts in the city, with 18 laptop robberies occurring in the first three months of this year, compared to 18 for all of 2004 and 48 last year.

Last month, a man who stopped at Mission Creek Cafe in the Mission District was stabbed by two teenagers out for his Apple PowerBook, worth $2,500. He was hospitalized for six days and suffered a collapsed lung. Police investigating that case say the suspects arrested Wednesday do not appear to have committed that attack.