SAN FRANCISCO - He apparently starts at night, cutting through the roof with hacksaws and drills and waiting for right moment. Then, just before the restaurant opens or just after it closes, he begins the raid.
The robber - nicknamed ''Roofman'' by police - drops through the 2-foot-by-2-foot hole and orders employees to hand him the money. Then he corrals them into a freezer or a back room, and escapes out a door.
The modus operandi has netted the ''Roofman'' thousands of dollars, say police, who believe the same criminal may be responsible for 38 robberies since November 1998.
''He is very nice. He's so polite. He seems to be very careful of the welfare of the people he is victimizing. Often, before he locks people in the freezer, he tells them to go get their jackets,'' said Mike Van Winkle, a spokesman for the California Department of Justice.
He struck again Sunday night in Clovis, just outside Fresno, taking about $2,000 from the McDonald's there, said Clovis police Lt. Tim Bos on Monday.
About half of his targets have been McDonald's restaurants, although he has also hit Burger Kings, Toys R Us, Blockbuster video, three groceries and a hardware store in communities scattered across Northern California and several other states.
Police say the robber hasn't injured anyone yet. Several times he's even called from pay phones after robberies to let police know that people were shivering inside locked freezers.
Despite his cordial demeanor, police worry about his violent side. Roofman always packs a semiautomatic handgun. A few times, he has fired shots, although none at people. Once, a bullet destroyed a telephone, preventing employees from calling police.
The Roofman's exploits have not always met with success. Several dozen times, police found signs that a heist had been abandoned.
In Folsom, he cut a hole in a McDonald's on Thanksgiving, only to find out that the restaurant was closed for the holiday.
In Placerville, he was spotted by police, but escaped by running across four lanes of traffic on U.S. Highway 50 - something police were unwilling to do, said Lodi police Detective Brian Scott.
At other restaurants, he has sawed through the wrong part of the roof, finding his way blocked by a metal freezer or other obstacles.
Although the ''Roofman'' remains at large, at least one other crook who tried to enter a restaurant from the rooftop was less successful. In 1992, a 27-year-old cook at a Mr. Steak restaurant in North Carolina got stuck hanging upside down as he tried to squeeze in through an exhaust vent. Rescuers hauled him out using rope around his ankles.
So far, the ''Roofman'' has had no such problems, and may have inspired copycats on the East Coast, said detective Scott. Businesses in Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, Minnesota and the Carolinas have been hit.
The ''Roofman'' - described as a white man between 18 and 30 years old and anywhere from 5-foot-7 to 6-foot-3 - remains elusive, apparently disguising himself by changing his hair color between heists.
The state has assigned one agent - Sky Pohle - to organizing efforts by local police to catch the ''Roofman,'' and McDonald's has put a private agent on the case.
The state Justice Department Web site doesn't say how much the ''Roofman'' has stolen thus far. But the losses continue to mount.
A restaurant in Reno lost $5,000. In Lodi, all he got was the change from the registers - $900. At $900 per robbery, the Roofman would have made off with $34,200 overall, and the actual total is probably much higher.
McDonald's is offering $10,000 to anyone who can supply information leading to the arrest and conviction of the ''Roofman'' robbery.
For now, police are simply gathering evidence and hoping for a break. He has struck so many restaurants over such a wide area that police can't possibly stake out all his potential targets.
''Just the sheer logistics of setting him up on this would be impossible,'' Scott said.
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On the Net:
http://caag.state.ca.us/roofman/
