Lake Worth Crime Victim

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Mark Parrilla, President of the Genesis Neighborhood Association, sent the accounting below of a recent crime incident of which he was the victim.

Kudos to the PBSO for quickly investigating and arresting the criminal. Without Mark remembering details of the crime, the license tag of the vehicle and without his accurate description of the perpetrator, PBSO would not have had the same odds in capturing the criminal.

Mark's story:

Dear neighbors,

Monday, June 4, 2012 at approximately 2:35pm as I was walking home from city hall when a silver Mazda, with two teens, came up behind me and attempted to rob me of my iPhone and I was assaulted. I was able to get the license plate and I got a good look at the assailant only because he looked back and laughed at me as I was getting up off the floor. It was a little more elaborate and scary than that but that story is for the court room. What I want to highlight is the speed of lightning response of our local PBSO D14 and our PBCFR came to the scene.

The level of professionalism and the compassionate manner in which I was treated was a welcomed and appreciated. Detective John Connor took my statement and arranged a meeting with Detective Paul Moody, the PBSO's miracle worker sketch artist, who was able to assist me in successfully recollecting what the perpetrator looked like. He drew a very near perfect likeness of the assailant. Yesterday Detective Connor brought me the photo array line up after interviewing both subjects. I made my identification very secure in my choice although the Detective could not tell me if I had made the correct selection I didn't need him to, in my heart, I knew I picked the right one.

Cut to 2:00pm Saturday June 9, 2012 I was outside in the yard giving my landlord something cold to drink since he was cutting my lawn and the deputy who was the first responder to the scene of the crime stopped by and rolled his window down to tell me the young man who did this to me confessed to strong armed robbery.

I hope that you publish this letter to serve as a small indicator to one of the many reasons why the vast majority of our city residents are so passionately supportive of our local Palm Beach Sheriff's Office District #14 team. They don't play when it comes to the safety of the residents of our city. I am truly impressed, again, by their outstanding level of efficiency, vast resources and passionate response to victims of violent crimes. They definitely made this scary incident a lot easier to cope with every step of the way so far.

I will proudly and emphatically state that if our city were to EVER leave their partnership with PBSO, well that would be the same day that this resident, as well as my Mother and Grandmother would be packing up and leaving right behind them.

Best Wishes,
Mark A. Parrilla