A man who had come to San Francisco to sell an expensive watch to an online bidder was beaten and robbed near the Alemany Farmers’ Market site on Tuesday evening, a police spokesman said today.
The robbery was reported around 7 p.m. Tuesday near where the farmers’ market is held at 100 Alemany Blvd. in the city’s Bernal Heights neighborhood.
The victim, a 67-year-old man, had flown in from Washington state after listing the watch online and negotiating a purchase price with someone in the Bay Area, San Francisco police spokesman Officer Albie Esparza said.
The suspect had agreed to reimburse the victim for his travel costs if he would go to a jeweler to have the watch appraised, Esparza said.
The suspect picked the victim up from Oakland International Airport in a silver SUV on Tuesday evening and brought him across the Bay to San Francisco, where two other suspects suddenly entered the car and began attacking the victim, Esparza said.
The suspects drove around in the car for several minutes with the victim and took his cellphone, wallet, laptop and two watches before pulling him out of the vehicle and driving away, according to Esparza.
The victim declined medical treatment for the injuries he suffered in the attack, Esparza said.
The suspects, described as black men between 30 and 40 years old, had not been found as of this morning, Esparza said. The three suspects were described as between 5 feet 10 and 5 feet 11 inches tall, with two weighing around 150 or 160 pounds and the other weighing about 200 pounds, Esparza said.
Anyone with information about the case is encouraged to call the Police Department’s anonymous tip line at (415) 575-4444 or send a tip by text message to TIP411 with “SFPD” in the message.
Dan McMenamin, Bay City News
