72-year-old security guard brutally beaten during Oakland burglary
OAKLAND -- A private unarmed neighborhood patrolman suffered broken hands and wrists after he was beaten by residential burglary suspects in Oakland's Oakmore neighborhood in broad daylight on Feb. 22.
Alex Igbineweka, age 72, described the violent beating as the most traumatic and painful experience he's ever gone through.
Igbineweka told KPIX he loves the work that he does and he considers the residents in the Oakmore community his second family. He said he picks up shifts to help pay his bills.
A resident shared a photo of how he found Igbineweka unconscious and slumped over near the Leimart Boulevard home three burglars had ransacked just before 2 p.m.
Igbineweka said he received a call from a homeowner after she watched the burglary in progress on her home surveillance video.
He walked to the property and took out his cellphone to document the suspects.
"As soon as I did the first shot, the people saw me and they all came out -- three of them. They attack me with whatever equipment they have, beat me up. It was a horrible, horrible scene," he said.
Fearing for his life, he said he pleaded and apologized to the burglars during the beating. One had a gun, the other used some sort of street-cleaning equipment and the third had a metal rod.
"I use these two hands to block my head and that rod hit my two wrists and shattered my wrists and then, next thing, they kick me to the curb," Igbineweka said.
He is recovering after surgery this week at home. Igbineweka has two casts on his hands and wrists and is unable to eat and perform basic tasks without assistance.
"I've been on this job for more than 20 years but I never expect this kind of thing will happen because I'm not armed," he said. "So it was not like I was trying to fire them or something."
The burglars demanded his phone and destroyed it.
Igbineweka was able to flag a passing cyclist to call 911 before he eventually lost consciousness. He said it took paramedics almost an hour to arrive.
"At that point, I started yelling in pain, 'tell the ambulance not to come again!' If i was going to die, let me die. It was that terrible," he said.
He also added that the suspects demanded his car keys.
They eventually left in their getaway car: a silver Hyundai Elantra which was recorded multiple times on home-security cameras. The video was handed to the Oakland police department.
A neighbor who wanted to stay anonymous said that an officer told her that the stolen car later turned up abandoned in Oakland shortly after the crime.
"It's ruthless and it's abhorrent, atrocious to do this to an elder," the neighbor said.
She said an armed robbery took place outside her home just weeks before. Her contractors were robbed in broad daylight. Several other neighbors and their contractors have been recent victims of brazen carjackings, robberies and burglaries. The normally quiet, residential neighborhood has seen an uptick in crime this past month.
"We definitely are scared. There's a lot of different feelings. We're enraged, we're fearful but we're saddened, too, that elders are being -- especially a patrol who is hired to guard us, to protect us -- is hurt," the neighbor said.
Neighbors described Igbineweka as "everybody's friend." One resident set up a GoFundMe page to help him through his recovery. As of early Saturday, the site had raised $23,115.
"It's bad but thank God I'm alive, it could have been worse," Igbineweka said Friday night.
Igbineweka said doctors will have a better timeline of his recovery in two weeks when he goes in for a checkup.
Meanwhile, neighbors are working with city councilmember Janani Ramachandran to demand better response times and city services.
Ramachandran thinks police need to reinstate community resource officers and bring back walking beat officers and officers on bicycles, who typically patrol commercial districts.
The attack on Igbineweka occurred about 200 feet from a commercial district, Ramchandran said.
"These hoodlums committing all these crimes -- using your precious brain for vandalism and crimes -- it doesn't pay. Crime doesn't pay," Igbineweka said.