This week’s story of the week covers an incident involving numerous aspects of personal safety of your home and your property. The 3 real victims in this case learned the hard way when their homes were burglarized in broad daylight. We hope that you don’t have to do the same. Read, Learn, and Change!
This is what caught the kid’s attention in the first place, an open rear screen door leading to a rear open garage door. Even if it had been locked and the kid had smashed out the door glass, an ALARM system would have scared him off and prevented serious damage and property loss.
It took the kid 45 minutes to break this door down using tools found in the garage. It would take a sophisticated adult crook much less time. An ALARM system would have scared off both!
Deadbolts are a necessity for a secure home but as you can see, even they can be beaten with enough time, especially when the crook isn’t seen or heard. No idiot in the world is going to keep pounding and chiseling away on this door with an ALARM system blaring it’s horn or siren outside. Do I really have to say it again? GET AN ALARM SYSTEM!
A $5,000.00 loss from this little box! How many family treasures and cherished items of sentimental value can you afford to lose that can never be replaced? If you are a woman reading this, would you be able to tell us exactly everything that was in your jewelry box right now? Photograph it, Document it, and STORE IT SECURELY!
These two burglaries took hours and hours to process at the scene. Did they need to happen in the first place? Burglaries are a crime of opportunity! Don’t give it to them!
Items such as jewelry with photos of family members, or items handed down over the years especially from loved ones who have passed away, or even items of great sentimental and meaningful value like your wedding ring, just can’t be brought back by way of an insurance settlement. You know what this 15-year old crook told me? He didn’t want to go home with pockets of jewelry and get busted by his parents so while running home he tossed items he didn’t think were valuable into the gutters and storm drains along the way. Items that had meant EVERYTHING to the owners, items that can never be replaced! What could have kept this from happening in the first place? Are you beginning to see the light yet?
These two cases involved over 86 items that were listed as having been stolen. We recovered around 50 of the items. Almost 40 of the most valuable are still being tracked down. Each item had to be logged, described, processed, and appraised, before being entered into evidence. This tedious work takes cops off the street for extended periods of time. If precautions had been taken beforehand, I know of 2-patrol officers, a detective, an evidence tech, and a property clerk, that could have been spending time on serious cases that WERE NOT avoidable.
I spent just about 20 hours on this case from the time of report, to the investigation, to the arrest, to the booking, and finally the writing of the 18-page police report. My partner Don spent another 6 hours processing and fingerprinting, logging property, writing reports, as well as tracking down the residents in Arizona so that they could call a relative or friend to respond and secure the house.
A detective put in another 4 hours filing a felony case to the DA’s office, not to mention all the hours of tedious work of entering all the items into the property room, done by the property clerk.
Let me ask you a couple of questions.
Could all of this been avoided in the first place?
Could it happen to you?
Will you let it happen to you?
What are you going to do about it?
You want your cops patrolling on the street or in the station tying up loose ends, on time consuming cases that could have been avoided?
If every action has a reaction, please learn from the actions of the victims in this very real case and take the simple steps to ensure you don’t join them in the victim category. Picture your beautiful wedding ring that is a one and only beautiful symbol to you and only you in this entire world, and picture it being tossed into a storm drain in the gutter, never to be seen again. All because you left a garage door open, or a rear kitchen window.
LOCK IT or LOSE IT!
ALARM IT!
And buy Cop Talk!
(Stay Safe Always, from the staff at Netcops PSI)
Caption underneath…… “Here today, Gone tomorrow….Don’t let it happen to you!”
