Police: Berkeley home burglar caught after Albany car theft
Police say Diamond Harris was found with a Rolex and cash he'd taken during the burglary when he was arrested.
A man who stole cash, jewelry and a Rolex watch from a home in northwest Berkeley was arrested days later after stealing a car in Albany, authorities report.
On Saturday, a Berkeley resident in the 1300 block of Kains Avenue called police to report the burglary, which had been caught on security camera, BPD said.
As Berkeley police investigated that crime, they shared images of the burglar internally and asked officers to be on the lookout for him.
Two days later, Albany police called BPD about a car theft in their city and said the stolen car was being driven through Berkeley.
Officers spotted the vehicle in the 1600 block of San Pablo Avenue and pulled it over, BPD said.
Inside the stolen vehicle, officers found 36-year-old Diamond Harris, whom they recognized from the Kains burglary surveillance footage, police said.
Harris, who is from Oakland, was wearing the stolen Rolex when he was arrested and he was still in possession of some of the cash from Kains, police said.
Diamond Harris. BPD
On Wednesday, the Alameda County DA's office charged Harris with the Kains Avenue home burglary, along with a "hot prowl" burglary Monday (in which someone was home), the Albany car theft and receiving stolen property, according to court records.
He entered not-guilty pleas in connection with the charges.
Harris, who is a phlebotomist by trade, according to jail records, is being held on $125,000 bail.
Court records show that he also has a pending misdemeanor case from early May, when he was charged with criminal threats, exhibiting a deadly weapon and petty theft, but no other information was immediately available about that case.
Harris is scheduled for a pretrial hearing Wednesday at Wiley Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.
