At least four lockers were broken into on Saturday at the L.A. Fitness south of Crystal City (3550 S. Clark Street).
According to Arlington County Police Department spokesman Dustin Sternbeck, the lockers in the men’s locker room were all locked with digital locks, and it’s unclear how the suspect was able to open them.
“We’re not sure if the suspect watched people in the locker room put in their codes, or if there’s a way of getting around the digital locks,” Sternbeck said.
One of the larceny victims said the robbery happened over the course of just a few minutes.
“I was working out for about 15 minutes, went back to my locker to change into my swimsuit and it was gone,” Mark Slobodien told ARLnow.com this morning. His wallet, ID and some jewelry were also stolen. “It feels like [the gym] was responsible, at least partly. I was using their locks to secure my property.”
Sternbeck said the department doesn’t keep statistics for thefts from gym lockers — they’re usually reported as larcenies — so he couldn’t say how frequent locker room thefts are. He did say, however, that most of the thefts are from lockers that were not secured by a lock.
There is no suspect description. All of the items stolen, Sternbeck said, appeared to be wallets, cash and other valuables that can easily be concealed.
Slobodien said L.A. Fitness staff told him similar larcenies had happened “once or twice” in the last couple of years. L.A. Fitness management did not return a request for comment.