Update: Suspicious Man Escapes From LAPD

LAPD detectives searched in vain Friday morning for a young man who was seen lurking around the 4400 block of Alumni Avenue and who fled when he was chased.

There were possibly two other men in the area, according to Sgt. Edward Perez, the watch commander at the Northeast Community Station. “The detectives are going to try to figure out what happened,” he said, adding: “They were obviously trying to do something—we’re not sure whether they were trying to steal a car or break into a home—and we might have prevented that.”

The men, all in their late teens or early 20s, were spotted by a neighbor who called 911, evidently aware of the rash of burglaries in the neighborhood lately. The detectives arrived on the scene, which is a stone’s throw from the trisection of Eagle Rock Boulevard and York Boulevard, at around 9:30 a.m. They searched the area along with other officers as well as support from a police helicopter, Perez said.

A resident on the 4500 block of Alumni Avenue told Eagle Rock Patch that the man the detectives were looking for jumped over his fenced backyard but was chased away by the resident’s two dogs (see photos). On Thursday, at about 4:30 a.m., added the resident, he saw what he believed was the same man in front of his house.

“I heard a thump on the cement in front of my gate and looked out the window,” he explained. “He was right there crouching down.” He added: “I said, ‘hey!’ and he said some guys are chasing me. I said ‘it’s time for you to go’ and he did.”

The resident, who requested his name and address not be published, described the man as slim, with a clean-shaven head and a thin mustache, wearing baggy shorts and knee-high socks—“kind of the Home Boy attire.” He had a roundish but not very full face, he said, adding that the detectives who chased the man showed neighbors a police artist's sketch of a man who resembled the intruder on Thursday.

The resident said that after his dogs chased away the man from his backyard, he then jumped into his next-door neighbor’s yard and escaped by fence-hopping northward several blocks along Alumni Avenue toward , where he was picked up by a waiting car.

“He must have had a car available—that’s what we’re thinking, too,” said Sgt. Perez, adding that in such circumstances, suspects “either hide in a home or they call a friend to help them.” (Perez said that in this particular case detectives do not want to compromise the investigation by publicizing what the fugitive might have looked like.)

The resident with the dogs quoted his neighbor as saying, further, that he saw the fugitive pull out a bag and change his clothes before hopping over the neighboring fence.

Sgt. Perez told Patch that LAPD officers will be patrolling the area where the man was chased more intensively. “These guys are going to know that and will probably avoid the area,” he said, adding: “But we’ll be over there.”

Click here to read our previous story about this incident.