How Romantic: DPW Worker Robbed of Work Equipment on Valentine's Day

Audrey Fukuman

What better gift than the gift of mop?

​If your beloved gave you the gift of rakes, shovels, and brooms on Valentine's Day -- beware. You may be dating a miscreant who has filched municipal property.

A Department of Public Works employee tasked with scouring filth on a day most folks were concerned with matters more amorous ended his day worse off than he started. At 3 p.m. he called the police to report a daytime robbery of his "cart"  -- essentially a garbage can on wheels -- containing the aforementioned tools (which, for reasons unknown, the police feel inclined to state are "used to clean the streets.").

DPW employees we spoke with said this sort of theft -- on Valentine's Day no less -- is highly unusual. Officer Massey of the Ingleside Station -- he doesn't prefer to give out the first name -- concurred. This is the first instance he recalls in his 19 years as a San Francisco police officer.

Perhaps the lure of those DPW-grade tools was just too much for our St. Val's day thief. After all, those rakes, shovels, and brooms are "used to clean the streets."