Crime & Safety

West Metro Burglar? Maybe. Maybe Not.

A serial burglar may—or may not—have hit area homes.

Earlier today, the Minneapolis Police Department released photographs of a man, they say, is responsible for at least five sophisticated high-end burglaries in Minneapolis as well as a number of other burglaries in Minnetonka, Wayzata and Edina.

But according to Minnetonka Police Captain Scott Boerboom, local detectives aren’t yet making the same connection that Minneapolis police have made between the burglaries.

“As of right now, we’re not sure it is the same person,” Boerboom said. “It certainly could be [but] for us to lump him in as a prime suspect—he’s not for us.”

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Wayzata Police Chief Michael Risvold also characterized the Minneapolis PD link as premature.

“They [Minneapolis police] have included us in this by mistake.  We have had no burglaries with…phone lines cut,” Risvold wrote in an email to Lake Minnetonka Patch

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In all the Minneapolis cases, which began in January and were last reported in April, the burglar compromised the homes’ alarm systems to get inside, and then made off with jewelry, cash, checkbooks and high-end electronics. Most of the cases took place during the day or when residents were away from home. 

In one Minneapolis case, according to Minneapolis police, the suspect also tried to compromise a security camera system. 

Minnetonka Police Captain Scott Boerboom did confirm to Patch that over the last two months Minnetonka has seen a half-dozen burglaries.  But he also said that in only one of those cases was an alarm system tampered with or were high-end goods stolen.  

“There are differences,” Boerboom said. “We’re going to continue to work our cases but we’re not going to focus all our energy into this person.”

However, this photo alert from Minneapolis police does come two weeks after Edina Police issued a to be on the lookout for a serial burglar who has reportedly taken more than $100,000 in jewelry from several homes in the city's northwest corner, just across the Edina-Minnetonka border.

Today, Edina Police did not outright confirm the man seen in the pictures is a suspect in the Edina cases, but said they have been "working closely with other departments on this particular set of cases."

Boerboom said that Minnetonka detectives are currently working with detectives from Edina to investigate burglaries in the west metro area but that the city has not seen an increase in burglaries recently.

If anyone does recognize the suspect in these newly released photos, Minneapolis police ask them to call Sergeant James Jensen of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Fifth Precinct Property Crimes Unit at 612-673-5587.


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