Home Security
“It’s 2pm, do you know where your house is?”
Last week I responded to a call for a residential burglary where a number of factors involved, support the very reason why we wrote Coptalk in the first place. In fact if the victims in this case had read CopTalk beforehand, they would have saved themselves from a lot of grief. The target was jewelry, expensive jewelry that meant a lot to the owners. Jewelry that had been given as gifts or had been handed down as heirlooms that can no longer be replaced.
The worst thing that these people had to face was the horrible feeling of violation that comes when a total stranger breaks into your home, and TAKES whatever he wants from
YOUR belongings. The bottom line is that these thefts never had to happen if the “opportunity” had not been presented to the crook. These mistakes are made on a daily basis and what that means, is that it’s just a matter of time before it happens to YOU. You can keep that from happening if you want to!
This case involved a series of errors for both the victims and the suspect, which fortunately led to an arrest and recovery of much of the property, however this never had to happen in the first place with some basic and simple precautions.
The crook targeted a quiet residential neighborhood that showed signs of no one being home. Or paying attention! The first house he hit belonged to a woman who was at work.
The second house he hit was right next door to the first one. The residents were retired and in Arizona on a R.V. vacation at the time. Unfortunately many of the neighbors belonged to the same RV. club and were in Arizona with them, which explained why no one appeared to be home at the time.
It was 3:00pm when this happened. The crook sees no signs of life at the end house and quietly slips into the side yard unseen. The crook looks in windows and it appears no one is home. He finds a hammer in the backyard and gets ready to break the rear kitchen window when he tries the window first and is surprised when it slides open. Once inside the house he quickly takes every jewelry item he can find in the master bedroom, as well as 80 CD’s and a handful of video movies.
He put all the property into 2 shopping bags that he found in the woman’s kitchen, and set the property alongside the house in the side yard. What kept him from leaving right then and there? While crawling into the window of the first house, he looked next door and saw that the next door neighbors house looked much nicer than the one he was breaking into now…plus the rear garage door was open!
He jumped the backyard fence into the second yard and checked the windows around the house. He found a car in the garage and became concerned someone was home so he walked around to the front door and knocked ready to ask if “so and so was home” but he got no answer. He looked through the mail slot next to the door and saw no one inside so he went back to the rear yard and entered the open rear garage door.
He knocked and when he got no response, he used tools in the garage to work on the heavy solid dead bolted door for 45 minutes before being able to knock it off it’s hinges and out of the wall. He enters the house and repeats what he did in the first house. He went straight to the bedroom and took all the jewelry he could scoop up.
He left the house, jumped the fence again, had second thoughts about carrying
4-shopping bags down the street. He left 2-bags behind and went on his merry way after filling his pants pockets with as much jewelry as he could.
What were the series of errors?
The woman who was at work returned home and discovered signs that someone had been in her house. Instead of calling 911 she checked the house herself and discovered all her jewelry missing.
This can get you killed. This can get you shot. This can get you beaten. This can get you stabbed. This can get you raped! It has in the past and it will in the future. A woman in a nearby community where Mark and I live was brutally murdered during a residential burglary. Just for being home at the time. Why was the woman killed? The 3 bad guys high on crank didn’t want to get busted and go back to prison. Did they enter the house with the intent on killing the resident? No, they were surprised when they found her in the house alone. Why did they pick the woman’s random house? It was the only one on the street with the garage door open.
If you discover signs of someone being inside your house, quietly, quickly, and safely get out of the house and call 911 from a neighbor’s house, a cell phone, or a payphone. If you confront a burglar in your house you have no idea what their mindset is. We are trained to deal with threats. You are not!
Evidence…you would think that in the burglary I responded to there would have been a lot of evidence to process. I mean after all, the crook did leave behind 2-shopping bags of property that he had handled. Unfortunately the property sat out in the rain for 24 hours. Yes, 24 hours!
The woman came home from work, discovered the break in, and felt that since the crooks were gone it was no longer an emergency. She called our business number after hours and got a recording stating the office would be open the next day, and that if this was an emergency, to hang up and call 911. She heard a beep after the message and thought it was recording so she reported the incident leaving her address and phone number.
It’s not a message machine! It only plays the outgoing message. This woman waited 24 hours for a response and figured that we were just too busy for her non-emergency incident. She finally drove to the station 25 hours after the incident occurred to make the report.
It’s still a miracle to me that we located the suspect and made an arrest. Property left behind in the bags was rain soaked. Fingerprints and handprints left on the kitchen window, were washed away by rain. I appreciate this woman being considerate of us being busy, but folks this is what you pay us for! When someone breaks into your home it is an emergency until we find out that no one is any longer inside, but afterwards collection of fresh undisturbed evidence can be crucial.
If you get a recording from a number you have for your local police agency after hours, listen closely to the message. The recording will list referral numbers to an alternate dispatch center or request that you call 911. PLEASE SAVE 911 for the life threatening emergency calls, but if all else fails, if it comes down to a choice of waiting 24 hours verses calling 911, then call 911. Phone listings for your local agency can be found in the phone book under “government listings”. Or simply dial the operator! Hey folks, we’re on the street 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!
Not uncommon to most other residential thefts we respond to, the victim was unsure as to what exactly was taken. When I called her down to the station to view what we had recovered, we found many things (with her name or initials engraved) that she didn’t even know had been taken!
Use a video camera, regular camera, or borrow one from a friend and photograph all the rooms in your house, as well as the property inside them. Not only will this be of valuable assistance in the event of a theft, but it can also be useful for disaster relief or insurance claims from fires, floods, storms, or other natural disasters. To accompany the video or photographs, make an itemized list of property room by room, with a brief description of the item, and it’s approximate value. Especially for jewelry items!
For appliance and electronics, it is imperative that you record the model and serial numbers for each item. VCR’s, TV’s, Radio’s, Stereos, Bicycles, Computers, Firearms, you name it. We need the serial numbers if you ever want to see your things again! Some people keep excellent records. Most don’t. You can change that. Spend a little time on a Saturday morning, store the tape or photos in a safe or safe deposit box, and keep the records there as well, or on a computer disk.
The neighbors next door had been on vacation for almost 3 months. Their family members came by periodically to check on the place but not on a regular basis. The house was definitely secured by a heavy duty door that took the suspect 45 minutes to break down, but what attracted the suspect to the house in the first place, was the OPEN rear door leading into the garage. What made it easy for the suspect to enter the kitchen window of the first house was an UNLOCKED kitchen window.
Lock your doors and windows when not at home. Whether you leave for work, a weekend, or a 3-month vacation, LOCK IT or LOSE IT! It a simple theory. Why is it so hard for people to understand?
Neither one of these homes were equipped with an alarm system. Alarm systems are very affordable these days and I swear by my badge, these 2 thefts would have never happened if an audible alarm had been activated. Even the sign posted on the lawn or the sticker in the window displaying the alarm companies name, can scare off a potential crook. They don’t want to take a chance on setting off an alarm and being detected!
Neighborhood watch groups greatly reduce the crime in a given neighborhood. The suspicious activity displayed by the suspect while trying to figure out if someone was home at the 2nd house, would have easily been detected by alert neighbors and the crook may have been captured right in the act! As with alarm systems, many crooks won’t enter a neighborhood with Watch Group signs posted because they don’t want to risk getting caught. Already got one? Great! Have MORE meetings and training sessions. Need to start one? Call your local crime prevention officer at your local police department.
The people who were vacationing out of town never requested a “vacation house check” from the police department. If you are leaving for a weekend, week, or month, and you have no one to check your house on a regular basis, call your local PD and request a vacation house check. Time permitting, the officers who patrol your area will drive by on dayshift, swingshift, and graveyard, specifically to see that all looks secure at your place.
The vacation house check request lets us know when you are leaving, where you will be, and what number to call in the event of an emergency. Do you have people taking care of pets, or the pool? Lawn or yard maintenance? Cars in the driveway? Lights on a timer? Got an alarm system? Who do we call to turn it off if it activates? Who is the neighbor for emergency contact with a key to your house in case we need to get inside?
Look at it this way. If you live at 123 Smith Street, you may not see a cop car on your street for some time unless the cop is passing by going from one call to another. With a vacation house check on file for 123 Smith street, I have all the information listed above at my fingertips, and I will be stopping by 123 Smith street a couple times during my shift to make sure that all looks well. Same for the guy relieving me later in the day, and the guy relieving him all night on graveyard. It’s an added measure of security you should take advantage of.
Have someone pick up your mail and newspapers on a daily basis. Crooks check for this when they scope out potential victims. If you’re going to be gone a week or longer, have your post office hold your mail. They do this for FREE!
Leave lights on inside by use of a timer. Make sure that front and rear porch lights are on during darkness and take that one step further and install motion lights. Crooks hate lighted exteriors and love dark ones. You decide what to give the crook!
Both of these losses and the damage caused at the second house could have been avoided with a few common sense precautions. Do yourself a favor. Spend a couple bucks and buy “CopTalk”. Buy it today! Read it, learn from it, and pass it on to a friend or family member. Or better yet, buy a second copy and send it to them as a gift. 286 pages with close to 500 safety tips from A to Z.
I’m thinking I know 3 people now that wished they had read it before they got violated! It could be worse though. The crook in this case was only 15 years old. Yes, only 15 years old! Since the juvenile court system won’t do anything to this young man to discourage this from happening again, (oh wait, I’m sorry, he’ll get probation and a slap on the wrist)
you can at least prepare for the adult crook who would have taken the VCR, the TV, the Outboard motor, the loaded shotgun, and much much more!
We wrote it for you to read. We wrote it for you to learn. We wrote it for you to prepare.
You get the easy part. All you have to do is buy it…
Talk to you next week! And as always, Keep Safe!
Jim Lambert
NetCops PSI
