Former UC Berkeley coach Jolana Fowler recalls walking down College Avenue toward Rockridge BART to catch a train to San Francisco on Jan. 16 about 11 a.m.
She had her ear buds in and was listening to music when she was approached by a younger woman who asked for directions in front of the 7-Eleven in Elmwood.
At the same time, a car pulled up behind the woman, Fowler said. With her iPhone in hand, she pointed down the street, directing the woman where to go.
“Next thing I know, she punched me,” Fowler said. “Her punch wasn’t that hard. I didn’t fall on the ground; I was just caught off guard … She pushed me to the ground, and I fell back, and my phone fell on the ground.”
The woman picked up the phone and jumped into the car, and Fowler, who previously coached the girls’ club volleyball team, chased after it until the woman hit her hands away from the window, Fowler said.
“Looking back, it was the stupidest thing I could have done,” she said. “What if they had a gun or something?”
As shocking as the encounter was for then-25-year-old Fowler, instances such as this one are far from uncommon in Berkeley. Fowler is only one of 221 victims of robberies that occurred within the city from January to June 2013, according to a recent police report.
At a special meeting Tuesday evening, BPD Chief Michael Meehan and other officers presented the 2013 Mid-Year Crime Report to Berkeley City Council.
Of the trends presented at the meeting, one of the most conspicuous was a 67 percent increase in robberies targeting people with iPhones, smartphones and other small electronic devices in the first six months of 2013 compared to the same months in 2012. The numbers of all other kinds of robbery held constant.
The growing number of smartphone-related robberies within the city is consistent with a growing regional trend, said Capt. Erik Upson of the operations division of the police department.
Of the robberies that occurred in the first half of this year, Upson said, many of them took place in the late evening and early morning, in particular Friday nights and Saturday mornings, although they also occurred in the afternoon.
The presentation also cited the greatest number of incidents of pedestrian robbery as occurring in Downtown, South Berkeley and Southside.
Meehan told council members that BPD has been proactive in recognizing and dealing with the rise in pedestrian robbery, comparing the 24 percent increase in robberies with the 49 percent increase in arrests per robbery in the first six months of 2012.
In response to the uptick in robberies, BPD has partnered with agencies such as BART and UCPD to leverage resources. This includes creating a robbery suppression unit that pairs a UCPD officer with a BPD officer to patrol the area south of campus during times when robberies are most likely to occur.
“The consistent thing is, put your cellphone away, and be aware of your surroundings,” said Capt. Andrew Greenwood of the investigations division.
The report showed that numbers of homicides, rapes and aggravated assaults remained consistent between the first halves of 2012 and 2013. Burglaries, however, are up 10 percent for this year so far.
Although she does not question her safety when she is out, Fowler said, after the incident in January, she makes an effort to be more street-smart by no longer walking around with her headphones in or her phone out.
“Here, living in Berkeley, people just assume it’s a bunch of hippies and vegans and students and everything’s all green and safe,” Fowler said. “Then, all of the sudden, you are getting mugged out of nowhere.”
Contact Chase Schweitzer at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @ChaseSchweitz.