Hot-prowl suspect opened door on sleeping children in Noe Valley, Pacific Heights burglary spree weeks after short jail stint for gun charges
Just over a month after his release from a short jail stint for gun offenses, a felon is suspected of a string of terrifying hot-prowl burglaries across San Francisco’s toniest neighborhoods.
Levi Michael Banks, 38, remains in jail only because he cannot conjure up $5,000 bail, even as prosecutors describe him in a court filing as a flight risk whose release poses a public safety risk that “cannot be mitigated.”
His lawyers are due in court November 3 to argue for his release.
Prosecutors say Banks struck six homes in Noe Valley in the small hours of September 26. Among his alleged victims across the city were senior employees of tech and consulting firms.
In one home, surveillance video shows a masked intruder opening the door of a room where children were sleeping. He had already been scared off at two nearby homes earlier that night.
Police received the first call at about 2:24am from a woman on 24th Street, who had found a man in a balaclava in her garage looking into her car. He ran when she set off the car alarm.
Shortly afterward, police responded to the house behind, on Elizabeth Street.
“Officers responded to the scene and spoke to the victim,” wrote assistant district attorney Colin Alexander in a motion to detain, “who stated she’d been sleeping in her room when she was woken by what appeared to be a cellphone flashlight shining into her room.”
“Immediately after she woke, the suspect fled and the victim called 911.”
At about 3am, the intruder entered a home where children were sleeping, a block away on 24th Street, through an open sliding door and stole jewelry.
“The suspect then opened the door where the children were sleeping and looked inside, closed the door and continued upstairs,” wrote Alexander, describing video footage.
“The suspect entered the daughter’s room, exiting a short time later. He then walks downstairs and looks through some cabinets and rooms before exiting the home via a different door into the backyard.”
Also on Elizabeth Street, a resident came downstairs, found the back door open and drawers pulled out, closed them and went back to bed. A laptop was missing in the morning.
Two weeks later, the burglaries moved to Pacific Heights. A woman in a Fillmore Street apartment went to bed at about 11pm on October 12 and woke to find her closet rummaged through and jewelry, a designer bag and fur coats worth $47,000 gone.
The same morning, a Jackson Street resident reported two bikes worth $18,000 stolen. Surveillance video showed a suspect in gloves, a balaclava and Chuck Taylor shoes.
On October 16, a resident’s niece in an Inner Richmond home heard noises from the ground floor at 2am and saw someone shining a light through her window.
“Surveillance footage showed a suspect wearing a black balaclava, black jacket, black pants, black gloves, and brown shoes with a lighter colored sole,” wrote Alexander of that incident.
“It should be noted that surveillance footage obtained by police shows defendant wearing brown shoes with a lighter colored sole,” he added.
By the early hours of October 23, police, alerted by a stolen credit card used hours after the first Noe Valley break-ins, had identified Banks, matched his shoes to the burglar’s and put a GPS tracker on his car.
The cards stolen from the 24th Street home were used at several locations on September 26, according to the motion.
That morning a street camera caught a black Lincoln pulling up during a purchase at a Tenderloin croissant shop. Plate-reader cameras placed the car at the burglaries, and police traced it to Banks.
Body camera footage from his April 29 gun arrest showed him wearing what appeared to be the same Chuck Taylor shoes as the burglar. Police then put a GPS tracker on the car.
They were monitoring the tracker at 2:23am on October 23 when a silent alarm went off at a Clay Street home in Presidio Heights where the car was parked. The residents said an intruder had entered while they were inside and fled as police arrived.
Officers arrested Banks at about 4:36am as he walked back to the car, nearly four weeks after the card was used. Five more homes had been hit in that time.
In a narrow path between two Washington Street homes, officers found a backpack holding about $4,500 in cash, a balaclava, black gloves, white Converse shoes and identification cards belonging to residents of a nearby Clay Street home.
A couple at another Clay Street home, where they live with their five children, found their kitchen door to the backyard wide open. A laptop, a wallet, a driver’s license, bank cards, a Patagonia backpack and an envelope holding about $5,000 were missing.
Banks was on the streets at the time of the burglaries having been released on August 17 after visiting Judge Gloria Rhynes gave him a time-served 111-day sentence for a battery of gun offenses.
This followed an April 29 incident in which he pulled a gun and threatened to shoot a man.
Earlier this week Judge Michelle Tong refused to release Banks on his own recognizance and set bail at $5,000. She ordered a report prepared on Banks’ eligibility for mental health diversion.
Banks, who has pleaded not guilty to ten felony and five misdemeanor charges, will next appear in court on November 3, when his attorneys will make a further attempt to secure his release.
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