BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A Facebook Marketplace deal took a frightening turn.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem Police Captain William Audelo said two juveniles were selling around $1,000 worth of shoes on the 1700 block of Shimer Avenue Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n
“The victims said they showed up and they were speaking with the suspects, at which time they showed a firearm and demanded the items that they were there to purchase,” said Captain Audelo.<\/p>\n
Police said the suspects, 23-year-olds Sekani Hartley and Israel Cortes, took off with the shoes and the phone of one of the victims. Captain Audelo said there were witnesses, photos and videos of the interaction. He said more officers were out on Saturday for community engagement, quickly making their way to the scene, identifying the suspects.<\/p>\n
“We do believe that they have other issues that they’ve been involved with which is why they were known to our detectives at the time,” said Captain Audelo.<\/p>\n
Police said they traced the suspects to the Oak Hollow Apartment Complex. A perimeter was set up and a robot was sent in to help and use chemical agents. Investigators said one suspect came out and police had to go inside to arrest the other. Police said they were able to retrieve the stolen items and three guns, including a stolen one.<\/p>\n
“We were able to get three guns off the street, which is a win any day of the week,” said Captain Audelo.<\/p>\n
He recommends meeting at a public place for any Facebook Marketplace transactions.<\/p>\n
“Find an area that is well lit that has a lot of other people around, potentially with security footage cameras that are in view. Bring somebody with you and let somebody know where you’re going,” said Captain Audelo.<\/p>\n
He said people changing the location of the deal or being unresponsive closer to it are red flags and to trust your gut instinct.<\/p>\n
“You can always buy or sell an item a different day, but you can’t replace your safety,” said Captain Audelo.<\/p>\n
Captain Audelo said Bethlehem police are working on creating a space that is monitored by police for deals, like Facebook Marketplace. He said the department will release more information about it in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – A Facebook Marketplace deal took a frightening turn. Bethlehem Police Captain William Audelo said two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,1488,91350,28,2781,91349,19002],"class_list":["post-207825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-police","tag-oak-hollow-apartment-complex","tag-pennsylvania","tag-robbery","tag-sekani-hartley","tag-william-audelo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}