Crime Update

     My last post was about a break in three doors from my house. There has been some development in the case since then.


     The two dirt bikes were found in another subdivision. A woman was checking her garage and found two dirt bikes  that didn't belong to her. She asked her son if he knew anything about them. He said he was keeping them for a friend for a little while. His mother pressed him for more details and finally said that she wanted more info or she would phone the police. So she phoned the police. Meanwhile the kid took the bikes to a school yard and ditched them. 


    The police picked up the bikes and asked my neighbor to come and identify them.


     The police told my neighbor that they know who the guy is who stole the bikes and that they have a description of him.


    So progress has been made. Hopefully the shock of such an event will fade.

A Crime Too Close for comfort.

     At 2:00 AM last Friday morning thieves took two dirt bikes and a quad from my neighbor Barb's  garage.


     Now for the rest of the story!


     We have a security light at our front door. It goes off and on during the night for various reasons. Seldom do we get up to see if anything is amiss. At 2:00 AM last Friday morning my wife did get up to look out. She noticed someone standing at our corner. The guy appeared to be looking around as if looking for something. My wife came back to the bedroom to get me to look out. By the time I got there the guy had disappeared. We also noticed that the light was on in Barb's garage. So my wife said the guy looked clean cut. We debated phoning the police but somehow thought that it was unnecessary. I also said, "Well Barb probably forgot to shut the light off." So we went back to bed. 


     On Sunday morning I asked another neighbor if he had seen anything early Friday morning. He hadn't seen anything but he told me then that Barb's garage had been broken into. 


    The bad guys had found Barb's car window down a tiny bit. They entered the vehicle and took the garage door opener and so entered the garage and took the loot. 


    On Friday Barb didn't go to her garage and didn't drive her car.. After supper she was going to go to the store and found a mess in the front of her car. She couldn't understand why the mess. Then she noticed the garage door opener gone. She checked the garage but didn't notice anything missing. The bikes and quads belong to her son and the bikes and quad went in and out of the garage. Just to be sure she phoned her son on Saturday. He said that the bikes and quad should be in the garage. 


     So the wheels turned very slowly and finally more than 24 hours later it was discovered that there was a theft.


    Meanwhile my wife and I felt very badly that we hadn't reported the person on our corner. Just maybe he or his friends may have been found and questioned in the area.


    So this was a crime that was close and so far away in many ways. There are the what ifs? There's the feeling of being too trusting. There's the feeling that it could have been me for some strange reason.


    So it's a wake up call for our community to join together and be much more aware of what is happening in the neighborhood.

How Secure is my House?

        This week a friend who lives across town had his house broken into. They were leaving on a road trip the next day and went downtown in the afternoon for some last minute supplies. They came home about 2:30 PM and entered through the back door. As they went to the front of the house they noticed parts of wood scattered in the entrance. Then that awful feeling of being violated slowly dawned on them as they realized that they had been victims of a break and enter. The police think that when my friends came home they scared the bad guys out of the house.

       So in discussion with my friends I began to think about how safe my house is. About twenty years ago I installed dead bolts on my doors. About ten years ago I installed security lights that would come on if motion was detected. This was in response to some vandalism which had occurred. For ten years my security light has been faithfully coming on mostly in reaction to cars going by or walkers on the sidewalk and the odd jack rabbit.

      This summer during a loud thunderstorm my neighbor woke up just after midnight. He was watching the lightning when he saw a person walking down the side walk and  up my driveway. He ran to another window to get a better angle and saw the kid running away. The security light had come on and scared the  kid so he ran away. So this is the only time I know of when the security light chased the bad guy away.

       My district is fairly quiet as far as crime is concerned. There's the very odd break in.

       Now with my friend's breakin it's time to consider if I need added  protection for security. If I need something more what will it be. My friend is shopping for a security system so I may listen to him and decide to add something else.