Jenna Forzley of Atomic Pizza on North Killingsworth Street had a close call last night, when a small group of teenagers stole a patron's purse and took off running down the street. The purse was recovered and the suspects caught by police - "they stopped the MAX train [the suspects] had gotten on," said Forzley - but nerves were frayed and the community was once again set on edge.

This is the latest in a string of North Portland robberies; according to Forzley, Blend Coffee Lounge, just down the street from her business, was robbed recently, as was the popular Lombard Street bar The Twilight Room. "That one was a real professional job," said Forzley. "They cut the phone line and everything."

These incidents, along with the string of "cat burglaries" along Lombard Street last month and numerous car break-ins on Killingsworth Street and nearby side streets, have prompted the Overlook Village Business District Association to organize a robbery prevention and business safety meeting for North Portland business owners. The meeting will take place Nov. 16 at 8:30 a.m. at Yorgo's, 5421 N. Greeley Ave., and will feature Portland Police Bureau Crime Prevention Coordinator Mark Wells (who wrote a nice post about Overlook Village on Commissioner Amanda Fritz's blog). More information in the Comments section of this post.

Read on for Jenna's account of last night's incident at Atomic Pizza:

Hi Everyone,
It's kind of ironic that we are organizing a business safety meeting 
for Monday, and then we have a robbery take place. I want to tell you 
all the details so you can watch out for your business and customers, 
so here it is.
Right when we were about to close a group (4-5) of young 
(14-16) black males walked up outside and then kind of walked away 
and then two of them came in. One stood by the door and held it open 
and the other walked in toward the end of our front counter. We had 
about 5 customers in here and one customer started to warn me about a 
crime spree that has been going on in the area so I walked up to the 
kid at the end of the counter and asked if there was anything he 
needed. At that moment he grabbed a customers purse and started 
running. It took all of about 1 minute. I ran after them and so did 3 
of our customers. They were able to get the purse back plus a hat and 
a pair of shoes. Someone on the street saw the kids jump on the max 
and waved down the cops. They caught a couple of them, but not all of 
them.
So, please come to the meeting Monday, we need to work together to 
stop this kind of stuff in our neighborhood. Plus, we need to 
communicate about things if they happen, this could have been 
prevented, or at least we can prevent it from happening again.
Attached is the flier for Monday, and please let other business 
owners know about this, from what the cops said, this has been 
happening all around our neighborhoods. And sorry if my email is a 
little jumpy, this just happened but I wanted folks to know right away.
Thanks.
Jenna