iPhones have won out over Google phones for robbers in Berkeley, according to the Berkeley Police Department.
At a Berkeley Police Review Commission meeting Wednesday night, Berkeley police Sgt. Ed Spiller said robbery trends in city have been either consistent or marginally increasing over the past week. He added that Apple iPhones are a favorite of robbers both in Berkeley and “everywhere,” and said the trend was noticeable even before students returned to the city for the beginning of UC Berkeley’s academic year.
The potential increase in robberies shows an opposite trend compared to statistics released by the department in late August. According to those figures, there were about 3 percent fewer robberies in the first six months of 2011 than in the same time period of 2010.
After Spiller brought up the iPhone robberies, – which he said have high concentrations in the Southside campus neighborhoods and near the Ashby BART station at the intersection of Woolsey and Adeline streets – Kiran Shenoy, acting commission chair, asked the sergeant whether the department had noticed the same prevalence in Google cellphone robberies, adding that he had a Google phone himself.
Spiller said robbers are mostly looking for iPhones. He added that sometimes police even receive reports of muggers handing back phones to victims after they have stolen them because they do not want that victim’s particular device.
The anecdote brought comment from Commissioner Nathan Glasper about people he has noticed who have their eyes glued on their cellphones as they walk.
“Anyone could have come up and taken their shoes and they wouldn’t know,” Glasper said.
Sarah Burns is the lead crime reporter.
Correction(s):
A previous edition of this post incorrectly labeled iPhone robberies as thefts.
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