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Oakland woman targeted 3 times by criminals in 2 weeks
An Oakland woman is looking over her shoulder after being victimized by criminals three times in a little over two weeks, and her family says the police need to do more.
OAKLAND, Calif. - An Oakland woman is looking over her shoulder after being victimized by criminals three times in a little over two weeks, and her family says the police need to do more.
"When you have three incidents in two weeks targeting the same person, you may need to see if there's something a little deeper going on," said her son-in-law, Don Sandstrom.
His 74-year-old mother-in-law had cars purposely rammed into her garage in North Oakland twice - and was carjacked in between.
It all began on Dec. 11.
"So my mother-in-law got up in the morning and somebody had crashed a car through her garage door," Sandstrom said.
A photo shows her garage damaged after the impact near 63rd Street and Hillegass Avenue. She called Oakland police and did not appreciate their response.
"That incident was, file a report online, and they did not come out, didn't do anything," Sandstrom said.
And just three days later, the woman got into her Mercedes, which was parked on the street because of garage repairs. That's when a second car pulled up.
"Somebody got out of that car, opened up her car door, yanked her out, threw her out on the street and drove off in the car," Sandstrom said.
But it was Berkeley police - not Oakland's - who first arrived at scene, after being summoned by a Berkeley parking control officer who happened to be driving through the neighborhood.
Her ordeal wasn't over just yet.
On Wednesday, someone rammed into her garage yet again.
"Hopefully this can get fixed really quickly," a neighbor remarked on video showing the aftermath of the third incident.
The woman immediately called Oakland police and was put on hold for 20 minutes.
"They told her that unless she was in danger of imminent bodily harm - 20 minutes later - they could do nothing, file a report online," Sandstrom said.
Oakland City Councilman Dan Kalb reached out to Oakland police after Sandstrom contacted his office. An officer visited the victim at her home and the captain of the area was made aware of the incidents.
"I'm so deeply sorry for this victim. Nobody should be attacked once, let alone three times," Kalb said.
Kalb confirmed that for non-emergency matters, police routinely direct victims to file a report online.
"It's not preferable, but what they do is they say file an online report, you might be able to have an officer come by the next day. And they sometimes do have an officer come by several hours later," Kalb said.
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Henry Lee is a KTVU crime reporter. E-mail Henry at Henry.Lee@fox.com and follow him on Twitter @henrykleeKTVU and www.facebook.com/henrykleefan