A 16-year-old boy was hit, held down and robbed over the weekend of his hat and shoes, police said this week.
The teenager was walking just before 10 p.m. Saturday near Woolsey and Ellis streets when three males attacked him, said Officer Jennifer Coats, Berkeley Police spokeswoman.
The assailants, all three of whom appeared to be 16 to 17 years old, approached the victim, struck him several times and wrestled him to the ground, said Coats.
One pinned him down while the others started checking his pockets.
“The suspects removed the victim’s shoes, stealing them and the victim’s hat,” Coats said via email.
According to scanner audio recordings, the victim’s shoes had white polka dots on them.
The victim suffered minor injuries during the incident, but did not require transportation for medical care.
The suspects were last seen leaving the area on foot, westbound on Woolsey, Coats said.
The case is still under investigation, and no arrests have been made.
Pedestrian robberies have been on a downward trend this year as compared to the same period in 2013, according to police data released this week.
According to the latest Berkeley Police Department newsletter, most of the pedestrian robberies that have occurred since late February have been concentrated downtown and south of the University of California campus.
Since January 1, there have been 91 robberies in the city, according to Berkeley Police data posted on CrimeMapping.com. While not an exact comparison, as June is not yet complete, during the first six months of last year there were 221 robberies in the city. Four robberies have been reported to the University of California Police Department.
Saturday’s robbery took place not far from the Ashby BART station, where an uptick of robberies from late 2013 into January alarmed local residents.
Of this year’s robberies in Berkeley, there have been 13 in the vicinity of the Ashby BART station, with 1-3 a month since the beginning of the year.
In one of those incidents, in late April, a woman was pepper sprayed, struck and knocked to the ground.
Two other robberies took place just over the Oakland border, as reported to CrimeMapping.com.
In December, police deployed special patrols to crack down on robberies around the Ashby BART station after a spike in incidents in the area, which took place in South Berkeley as well as North Oakland.
Data available on CrimeMapping.com do not indicate which of Berkeley’s robberies involved weapons. Berkeleyside has previously asked whether it might be possible to include this information. To date, it has not changed.
Read more on Berkeleyside about crime statistics and robberies in Berkeley.
Related:
Berkeley woman sprayed by liquid, struck, robbed (04.29.14)
Robberies rise, but serious crime down overall in 2013 (03.14.14)
Alleged Berkeley wedding ring robber arrested, charged (02.05.14)
South Berkeley robberies on the rise near Ashby BART (01.17.14)
Police join forces on Berkeley-Oakland robbery series (12.11.13)
Pregnant woman robbed at gunpoint in South Berkeley (12.10.13)
Parolee charged in Berkeley robberies has violent past (11.14.13)
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