Jeanne Chang, owner of Lil’ Pop Shop located near 44th and Spruce, reports that there was a burglary at the shop last night. There was no sign of breaking and entering, just cash stolen from yesterday’s sales and some extra change, Jeanne, who is currently out of town, writes in an email.

Jeanne filed a police report and would appreciate tips from anyone who may have spotted something unusual between 10 p.m. last night and 10 a.m. this morning. Please call the police at 215-476-1131 with any information.

Some West Philly Local readers witnessed an arrest Monday night, around 9 p.m., near 45th and Osage, when two young males (looked to be between 15 and 18 years old) were handcuffed and taken away in a police van.

We learned that the arrest was made by Penn Police and the suspects, both early teens, were arrested for theft. Police say they stole a bike from 44th and Osage by cutting the lock with bolt cutters, according to Joe Murray of the Southwest Detectives. One of the alleged thieves is only 13 years old.

West Philly Local reader Alexandra reports that two bikes were stolen from her porch on the 5000 block of Cedar Ave on Friday night (between 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.). She wanted to alert West Philly residents about it and hopes they will be on the lookout for the bikes.

“I am hoping that people will bring their fancy bikes inside and not leave them on porches like we did,” she wrote in an email. A police report was filed about these missing bikes – if someone sees them they can call the police, or call Alex directly at 301 502 4820.

Here’s the description of the bikes:

– A handmade mountain bike – metallic orange paint, a little dinged up. Women’s small-medium sized frame. Large black bike seat, new-ish tires. This bike has lots of sentimental value to its owner because her brother made it for her from scratch.

– One year-old KHS 2011 Urban Xcape medium frame women’s bike. Black. There was no bike seat because it had recently been stolen off the bike at another location.

We have received reports of a brazen theft pattern developing over the last couple of weeks at some local cafes. Tip jars were stolen from the counters of at least two local establishments last week.

Tip jars were stolen from the Green Line Café on Locust Street twice in the last two weeks, according to owner Douglas Witmer. It looks like both times it was done by the same person, he adds.

A tip jar was also stolen from Milk & Honey Market at 45th and Baltimore Avenue, according to owner Annie Baum-Stein, who added that the theft happened at the end of the day, around 7 p.m.

It’s not known how much money was stolen.

This is an unfortunate incident that happened to a neighbor over Memorial Day weekend and a reminder to all neighbors to make sure you don’t leave any valuables, both money-wise and of personal value, on your porches. A neighbor, Mike, who lives on the 4400 block of Larchwood Ave reports that his camera bag with photo and video cameras and other equipment (all about $1200 worth) was stolen off his porch after he left it there by accident. Mike left his bag and some other items on their porch on Sunday night after he and his wife returned home from introducing their newborn baby to family. Photos and videos of the meeting were on the cameras.

The camera bag was stolen between 11:30 p.m. on Sunday and 3 p.m. on Monday when Mike discovered that it was missing: “I accidentally left some items on our front porch… Although most items were still there, someone stole my camera bag, complete with my Pentax K10D camera, Tamron AF18-250mm lens, external flash unit, and Kodak zi8 small handheld video camera. Also, miscellaneous batteries, 2 memory cards, a lens filter.”

Mike says that he filed a report with the police. “As you can imagine, we are upset about losing around $1200 worth of equipment. But we can’t replace photos and videos of our family meeting our baby,” he writes.

Update: The stolen cameras and lens are not very common, Mike adds, so if anyone sees them at a local resale, pawn or flea market, please call him 610-389-0985.

Some of our readers may remember a scam alert we published exactly two years ago of a young woman asking for money in the neighborhood because she said she had been abused by her husband and was looking for a domestic violence shelter. This past weekend we received another report of a female involved in the similar activity. Here’s what our reader, Elle, wrote:

“I got scammed big time by a woman who stopped me in the street (46th and Spruce) and asked me to help her find a domestic violence shelter. She had a really heartbreaking story about escaping from her abusive husband and she was trying to get to a “safety point.” I let her borrow my phone to call the hotline she said she’d been talking with earlier. After overhearing her conversation I ended up giving her (way too much) money to cover her fare to the safety point in the suburbs. I started getting suspicious after she left and checked the call log on my phone. None of the calls were longer than 10 seconds — she had been pretending to talk on the phone so I would overhear her plight and give her money. It’s a pretty despicable scam, but it worked really well.”

While the account we described in our post in 2011 hasn’t changed too much, this time the description of the woman is different. Elle said that it was “a middle aged white woman with dyed red hair, wearing a sweat suit.”

On Friday, May 10, a reader, Rachel, became a pickpocket victim at Honest Tom’s taco shop near 44th and Spruce. Rachel says that her wallet was stolen and that after talking to the owner, she discovered that she was “hit by a notorious West Philly pick pocket who is known by the alias ‘scarface’.” While we are waiting for a response to our police inquiry about this “well known” neighborhood thief, we wanted to alert other residents about this incident.