Thief lucked out, got away with $178,000 cash from saved tips
Discovering his safe gone must have been one humongous ‘oh shit’ moment for the victim.
Surveillance cameras belonging to a couple of neighbors caught the burglar walking leisurely down the street, carrying the small safe on his shoulder.
BARTENDER’S STASHED TIPS - $178,000 WORTH – GONE IN AN INSTANT IN SAN PEDRO BURGLARY
By Larry Altman
Los Angeles Daily News
June 7, 2013
For 24 years, a San Pedro bartender methodically scooped up all of his tips each day, exchanged them for $100 bills when he had enough money, and deposited them in a safe at his home.
He skipped vacations so he could work. Birthdays and holidays were spent at the bar, too.
The money was for his three kids, so they could have a better life than he and his wife.
The safe contained 1,740 $100 bills and 2,090 $2 bills -- $178,000 in all --when someone burglarized their house this week and walked off with it, police said. The bartender knows because he kept a meticulous ledger and provided it to police.
"I couldn't speak to my wife," he said in an interview Thursday. The couple reported the theft to LAPD Harbor Division police and stayed up late unable to sleep. His wife cried.
Los Angeles police burglary detectives are trying hard to solve the Wednesday morning crime in the 1400 block of Second Street in San Pedro. They released photographs Thursday of a possible suspect and his car that were recorded by a neighbor's home surveillance camera.
Detective Don Eldridge said he hopes someone recognizes the man or car and gives him a call.
Meanwhile, the bartender -- who asked that his family and his employer remain anonymous for their protection -- can only do what he knows best. Return to work. And wait.
"I can't do nothing," the 51-year-old man said. "I am waiting to see if something is going to happen."
The crime occurred about 9:30 a.m. after the bartender drove his 17-year-old son to school and his wife left for work at 8 a.m. When the bartender returned home at 11 a.m., he noticed a rear window was open. A window latch had been forced off.
He entered the house, and discovered his dresser drawers in his bedroom were open, as was the closet door. The safe was gone.
A native of Mexico who arrived in California in 1989, the bartender was saving the tip money to help his 28- and 26-year-old sons achieve the American dream of owning their own homes and for his teenage son to go to college.
"For 24 years, I don't know what is a vacation," he said. "I don't know what is my birthday. I don't know what is a holiday."
He worked whenever he was asked and drove an old car.
Collecting his tips in primarily dollar bills, he took them to a bank and exchanged them for $100 and $2 bills. Although he kept a bank account to cash his paycheck, he took the tip money home and put it into his small safe.
"I am Hispanic," he said. "We don't like to put all the money in the bank."
The burglar took nothing else, leaving behind checks and some other cash on his dresser. Nothing else was missing. A police report said officers found no fingerprints.
A neighbor said she noticed a man walk up the sidewalk and the victim's driveway, and stand at the corner of the house as if he was looking for someone.
"He looked a little suspicious but then I started thinking it was his son's friend," she said in an interview. "I watched him going back and forth up the walkway to the garage and then to the door and then I didn't see him anymore. I thought, 'Well, maybe he's in there with my neighbor's son.' "
The woman realized she should have called the police, but said the teenage son's friends come over all the time during the day.
Two neighbors' home security cameras might prove key for police to solve the crime. One neighbor said she did not witness the crime, but rewound her tape and spotted the man. He placed the safe on the top of the brick wall behind the victim's house, climbed over the wall, took the safe and was gone.
The video was blurry, she said, and the man wore a hoodie sweatshirt.
"I hope they get that guy," she said.
Another neighbor's camera showed the burglar arrive in a yellow two-door sports car, possibly a Chevrolet Cavalier Sport or a Pontiac Sunfire, the police report said. He parked on Harborview Avenue and walked toward Second Street.
The video later showed him carrying the victim's safe on his shoulder, the report said.
The bartender said he never talked about the money, and had told his son it would be for him.
"I told my wife, 'What can we do? We cannot be crying all the time,' " the bartender said. "I had that money in my house and I made a big mistake."
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