Robber taunts police from rooftop, exposes his butt, lights fire, California cops say
A Northern California robbery suspect barricaded himself on a rooftop Friday afternoon, where he taunted police by exposing his butt and throwing objects over the edge, helicopter video shows.
In the late afternoon, the man remained atop a five-story unoccupied building that is under construction in Fremont on Warm Springs Boulevard and Brown Road, according to local police.
“He is not believed to be armed, however he has access to construction materials and has thrown several objects (fire extinguisher, gas cans & hammers) at us,” the Fremont Police Department said in a series of posts on Twitter. “We have visual/verbal contact with the man, but he’s been unwilling to comply thus far.”
Police said the man is suspected of attacking a woman during a home invasion robbery, after which “a detective saw him enter the building under construction,” police said.
The woman who was attacked was “shaken,” police said, but she is all right and didn’t need medical treatment.
“We can now confirm he just lit a rag on fire,” police said of the suspect just before 4 p.m., adding that firefighters were “using water to try and neutralize any accelerants on the rooftop from gasoline that may have been poured earlier. We are attempting to prevent a fire and damage.”
Video posted by CBS San Francisco shows the man on the rooftop with his pants pulled down, exposing his butt.
The TV station reported that police have encircled the building.
Police asked media helicopters flying overhead to back away because their noise was making it hard to speak with the suspect.
Police said the man “frequents the area” and “may have also stolen some packages earlier in the morning.”
Fremont police spokeswoman Geneva Bosques said the man was in the woman’s home Friday morning for roughly 10 minutes before she noticed him, screamed and was attacked, at which point the man ran away with things from her home and neighbors called 911, Bay City News Service reports.
Authorities warned that the “incident will definitely affect the commute tonight. Please plan to avoid the area for the next few hours.”
This story was originally published December 13, 2019 at 4:34 PM with the headline "Robber taunts police from rooftop, exposes his butt, lights fire, California cops say."
