Help police ID burglary suspect seen using rocks, bricks to break into homes



SEATTLE -- He’s using rocks and bricks to break windows and get into homes in south Seattle. Police say they’ve connected one man to at least two burglary attempts in the last couple weeks. They want the public’s help to identify him, before he strikes again.

Davitt Mullen says it’s a little unsettling, watching surveillance video of the man who tried to break into his home Tuesday morning.

“He spent two minutes knocking on the doors, smoking a cigarette very nonchalantly.”

Mullen wasn’t home at the time, but he had friends staying with him. They couldn’t hear the knocking from the downstairs bedroom, but they did hear when the man went around to the side of the house and tried to get in through the window.

“My friend was sleeping in this bed, the blinds were down, and the rock came through here.”

Police say a couple of days earlier, the same man broke into a home a few blocks away. In surveillance video, he’s seen wearing the white shirt and red vest. He throws a brick through a back window, grabs a laptop, and runs off.

Mullen says he also had a laptop in his home, visible through the widow.

“You could see him look, that's what he was going after. If he had gotten in, he would have gotten that.”

His friends scared off the would-be thief with their screams, but Mullen is worried the man might return. He says crime in his South Seattle neighborhood is on the rise.

“We’ve been burglarized five times now, but it's not just us,” says his neighbor, Amy Fleetwood. “The man across has been hit twice, the man on the corner, down the street, all around.”

Many neighbors have added surveillance cameras and alarm systems.

“This is becoming a neighborhood that's fearful and suspicious, and that's an awful thing,” says Fleetwood.

Mullen is just hoping someone will recognize this man, so police can catch him before he tries to break into any more homes.

“The audacity of someone that doesn't even care about being on video footage, doing this kind of stuff, it's a little frightening.”

If you think you recognize the man, you’re asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.