Mpls. man has laptop stolen from his lap; police say suspect reached thru window

Police call it bold and bizarre. The victim certainly couldn't believe it.

19-year-old Jesse Phoutthaphaphone was in the front room of his North Minneapolis home near 26th and Penn. He was sitting by a cracked window to catch a little breeze while he was typing on his MySpace page, using his laptop computer.

"I was typing and all of the sudden just woosh! I was like oh, what the hell?" Phoutthaphaphone said.

"This is clearly a real desperate act, I mean he (the suspect) stole the computer out of his hands while he's in his house," Minneapolis Police Sgt. Jesse Garcia explained.

"He was probably just creeping right here, I was typing, and then all of the sudden he just yanked it," the victim remarked. He only saw the suspect's hands; then saw his back as he ran around the corner of his home.

Phoutthaphaphone was in his boxers, without any shoes or socks on. Didn't matter; he ran through a couple of yards as he chased after the suspect who still had the laptop.

"A lot of things can happen around here, you can't let anybody just take your stuff like that," he said.

Phoutthaphaphone chased the suspect to a home a few blocks away, where the suspect had run into a garage to hide. That homeowner saw him run into the unlocked garage, so he jumped in to help Jesse.

Kicked the garage door open and the guy tried to rush out and we both hit him and he dropped the laptop, it was flying and then bam... broke!" Jesse said.

The two men say they held the suspect down for five minutes until police arrived. Lionel Green has been charged with 2nd degree burglary.<./P>

"This wasn't even a crime of opportunity. They caught him and now the only window he's going to be reaching through is a window with bars," Garcia concluded.

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