There has been recent theft by an African American woman in the San Jose, Los Gatos area optometric offices. Please alert your staff of the description. Reminder again of those who you suspect least tend to be the ones who will commit a crime. They will distract you or try to be in the optical area alone by asking for adjustment, etc. Make sure we all monitoring patients who we do no truly know and do not leave them alone in the dispensary.

She has shoulder length straight hair and a tattoo on her arm. She was also wearing black scrubs that day and a big red purse. She was in Site for Sore Eyes in Los Gatos. The police almost caught her but she got away. The car she was driving was registered in Los Angeles.

The police officer advised if she comes into your store, call 911 and leave the phone off the hook so she doesn't know that you called.

We had a similar burglary last week. A stocky-billed aprox. 5'9", 270 lb. Hispanic male around 30 years of age, came into our office wearing a baseball cap with a flat bill and all in kaki green. He was wearing a long shorts and seemed friendly.

He came in saying he was looking to replace a sunglass frame of his girlfriends that he broke. He said it was the Prada frame with the swirls and even said it was the square shaped one not the round one. We told him we could order it and he tried on a couple of frames from the sunglass board. He handed my assistant a credit card that said "your name goes here". (This type of card is the kind they send you in the mail trying to get you to get a new credit card account.)

When I came out from the back, she had the card and he was gone. He had told her he needed to get something from his bike. We noticed that there was one frame missing from our normally full sunglass frame board. We went back to our cameras and could see him slipping a frame in his pocket behind the front desk. The desk is pretty high and my assistant could not see him below his shoulders.

The police was called and we also notified neighboring optical and optometry offices. He also had gone into Site for Sore Eyes down the street. In addition he went into the bagel shop a few doors down and bragged how easy it was to steal from us.

 I wanted to alert other ODs in the area about a woman who stole some sunglasses by Gucci, Fendi and Carerra from my office this morning.  She was African-American, about 5'2" or 5'3" and about 150 lbs, a little heavier set, with a quilted large shoulder bag with short straps, wearing a skull cap with blue/black sequins, a black sweatshirt with an SF logo on it and a little baggy, possibly bronze-dyed hair.  I saw the reports a few months ago about two women working together, but today there was only the one woman who took advantage of a busy reception room and not enough staff to latch onto her and stay with her. 

If you have information, please contact: The Office of Pamela Fong, O.D. and Sandra Miyamoto, O.D., 1881 El Camino Real, Burlingame, CA 94010, Tel: (650) 692-1792 / Fax: (650) 692-4245 / Email: pamelafongod@yahoo.com.

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I work with Dr. Shital Chatwani who owns Tri-City Optometry in Newark.  I wanted to inform you and other ODs that there was a burglary in our office just past midnight today, at 12:03 am.  

There was a lone suspect recorded on our surveillance camera, who first tried to break the front door glass to gain access, but when he was unable to, broke a pane of glass adjacent to the front door.  The suspect specifically stole only Oakley brand frames, breaking the Oakley case and taking roughly 50 frames.  The burglary alarm was not activated, probably because he did not enter through the door.  Nothing else was disturbed besides the locked Oakley supplied case.  Because the alarm was not activated, the police were not alerted until about 7:30am when a passerby noticed that there was broken glass at the store front.

The suspect appears to be of Hispanic or Caucasian decent, slim build, medium height, and worked alone.  According to the recorded surveillance video, the entire break-in took about a minute. 

Please notify other optometrists in the area to be aware of this event. 

Thank you, Karin Rardin, OD (writing for Dr. Shital Chatwani)

The Sunnyvale practice of Dr. Beth Browdy, O.D. was also burglarized recently.  Most of the items taken were women's frames, notably designer plano sunglasses and high end designer frames.  Be sure to set your alarms and security.  For additional information, please contact Dr. Browdy, O.D. at (408) 738-2020.

The Sunnyvale office of Dr. Athena Reyes, O.D. was robbed in October by two women pretending to look at sunglasses. They walked off with two pairs of Ferragamos. 

The description of these women is: Two African American women in their late 20's/early 30's, both approximately 5'7'' tall, 150 lbs, one with red streaked hair, in a black Mercedes.  

For additional information, please contact Dr. Athena Reyes, O.D., Tel: 408-492-1111 / www.eyelink.com