On the dance floor at Blarney Pub and Grill early Sunday morning, Augsburg College student Tina Angok’s phone was stolen from her purse.

Blarney security monitor Kyle Andersen said he was watching a man who appeared “suspicious” and that he noticed him take a cellphone from Angok’s purse.

Andersen said he followed the man and notified the head of security, who called the police and held the man there until police arrived.

Angok said she didn’t notice her phone was missing until she was getting ready to leave the bar. By the time she and her sister contacted security, they had already recovered the phone from the suspect.

On busy nights, additional security watch the Blarney dance floor in plain clothes in order to watch for thefts like this one, Anderson said.

Blarney owner Mike Mulrooney said he works with the Minneapolis Police Department’s 2nd Precinct to find the most effective ways to prevent and handle crime.

Blarney staff call police the most over the weekend, Mulrooney said, but calls can vary from zero to seven in one night.

“Police response time is awesome,” he said.

Security staff rarely face issues turning thieves over to the police, Mulrooney said, a success he partially attributes to scanning patrons’ IDs when they come in.

Angok said she’s been to the bar before and she doesn’t worry much about crime in Dinkytown, because she’s careful to stay in a group.

“I always feel safe there,” she said.

Police arrested the man for theft as well as two misdemeanor warrants.

Minneapolis police public information officer John Elder said it’s common for Minneapolis police to make warrant arrests after coming in contact with a suspect for another reason.

Police officers also occasionally perform “warrant sweeps,” Elder said, a more active search for anyone with a warrant out for their arrest in a certain precinct.

Renovation break-in, theft

When Rachel Commerford arrived at the construction site of her future home in Marcy-Holmes on Saturday morning, she knew something was wrong.

The house’s front door and garage doors had been kicked in. Inside the house, Commerford said she saw a copper pipe on the ground.

About 60 feet of pipe was missing from the house, along with power tools worth about $1,500, according to the Minneapolis police report. The suspects also broke lights in the house and kicked holes in the walls of newly finished rooms.

Commerford and her fiance, who works at the University, recently bought the property, which they plan to live in after remodeling it.

The Marcy-Holmes neighborhood, which encompasses Dinkytown, had 431 cases of petty theft in 2013, according to Minneapolis police data.