Police say they arrested one person in connection to the troubling smartphone thefts and assaults on women in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood. But they believe the suspect may have not worked alone.
The screams and the crime scene from a surveillance video are eerily similar to what a Noe valley mom remembers experiencing, when she was robbed and attacked Monday. She said it was like a living nightmare.
“I go to bed at night, and I just see his eyes,” she said.
The victim doesn’t want to show her face due to safety reasons. But her story is like 10 other incidents that the San Francisco Police Department is investigating.
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“Somebody approached me from behind, grabbed for my phone. I grabbed for it back and looked up and looked into his eyes and just fear overtook my body,” the victim said.
Each one of the crimes also included an assault on random victims, who are mostly women.
“In that moment, he threw me to the ground me to the ground and my stroller. I screamed – multiple times,” the victim said.
Fortunately, the victim’s baby wasn’t in the stroller because she was on her way to pick her up.
San Francisco District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman said a crew of three to four people targeted mainly women, who they assaulted and stole their smartphones.
"It sounds like it started on Monday and the worst of it was on Monday and Tuesday," he said.
Mandelman said that police are investigating 11 different victims of the robberies and assaults.
"And some of them were pretty awful. These assaults," he added.
Mandelman confirmed on Friday that police arrested one minor and recovered a stolen Kia that was shown in a surveillance video. Now, they are trying to identify the rest of the crew.
“District 8 is safe. But too many people are having these kinds of experiences, where they get assaulted. Where they have stuff stolen from them,” he said.
One Noe Valley victim might feel safer when the rest of the crew is arrested, but so far, she said she is not impressed with police’s response.
“I filed a report, but never got any meaningful engagement thereafter – and then, it happened 10 more times potentially,” she said.
NBC Bay Area reached out to San Francisco police Thursday before a meeting with the supervisor and victims. They said in part: “It’s too early in the investigations to determine what connections, if any, the robberies may have.”
