'Tis the season ... for package thieves

By Diane Hettrick

Photos courtesy LFP Police

The holiday season, with all of the package deliveries, makes easy pickings for thieves.

I was in the North City post office when a woman came in insisting that the post office had lost her package. She was following its progress with online tracking, which showed that it had been delivered.

"I've been home all day," she said. "I would know if a package had been delivered."

Maybe she's right. But probably she has fallen victim to package thieves.

They simply follow a delivery truck on its rounds. The driver puts the package on the porch and moves on. The thief sprints to the porch, grabs the package and is gone. The whole thing takes less than a minute.

Even if the vicim were home and saw the theft, there's not a lot they can do at the moment.

The good news is that a lot of people have installed surveillance systems. Originally the results were quite grainy, but the technology keeps getting better and better.

The photos in this article are from a very recent theft in Lake Forest Park near the Burke Gilman Trail.

The CanYouID.me site created and maintained by Lake Forest Park police detective Tony Matthews exposes this thief to a larger audience. There's no reason to assume that this thief in these photos lives in LFP. Package thieves and mail thieves usually keep moving into new territory.

When one of these guys is caught, it usually solves dozens of thefts, and often results in the return of stolen goods.

The guy rode his bicycle right up to the porch.

Be on the lookout for this bicyclist, and if you see him on the street, call 9-1-1. If you think you have any information about him, call Det. Matthews 206-364-8216 or email him. Case number here with email link.