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Police charge city man with theft, burglaries

Anderson, 35, allegedly stole tools from shed; went through car

An Altoona man is in jail after police say he stole tools out of a shed and lost a shoe running from another homeowner who caught him rummaging through her vehicle.

Christopher K. Anderson Jr., 35, of 810 Third Ave., is accused of stealing a Makita drill and Hitachi chop saw and other items from a shed on the 3000 block of Baker Court, as well as being the man a homeowner saw inside her vehicle about 3:30 a.m. Saturday a quarter-mile away on Mansion Boulevard, according to Altoona police.

Police were first called to the Mansion Boulevard home near Union Avenue about 3:30 a.m. It wasn’t until later Saturday morning that the Baker Court homeowner discover his shed had been burglarized, with several hundred dollars worth of tools missing.

According to the charges, a woman on Mansion Boulevard told police she was getting ready for bed when she looked out the window, saw the dome light of her vehicle was on and that there was a man inside. She told police she yelled at the man and he ran into things and lost a shoe as he took off running through the backyard.

The woman’s husband supplied police with a license plate of a Chevrolet SUV that was parked in front of their house at the time of the incident, one he initially thought belonged to a friend of his daughter.

Police checked the license plate and found it belonged to Anderson’s mother, and when they showed up at the Anderson home to talk with her, they learned she drove a different SUV and the one officers were interested in was mainly driven by her son.

Police said Anderson was home and both he and his mother allowed officers to look inside the Chevrolet SUV, one that was parked around the corner from the house.

The stolen chop saw was sitting on the back seat and a Makita box was sitting on the rear passenger side floor. Police said Anderson initially claimed to own the tools but later admitted to having stolen them from the Mansion Park area.

Anderson also denied losing a shoe — a Dr. Martens dress shoe — but then admitted he lost it, although he was unable to tell police whether he first burglarized the shed or rummaged through the parked vehicle.

Anderson was booked on charges that include felony burglary along with multiple counts of misdemeanor theft and receiving stolen property.

Bail was set $15,000 cash by Magisterial District Judge Daniel DeAntonio on Sun­day, and Anderson remains in Blair County Prison with a preliminary hearing scheduled for July 31.

Anderson was convicted and sentenced to one to two years in jail for multiple burglaries and thefts from vehicles in Altoona between 2010 and 2012, along with pleading guilty to burglary in the theft of a safe full of $20,000 in jewelry and Civil War relics in Roaring Spring in 2011.

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