Lock slows burglars

A few weeks ago, a burglary was reported at a self-storage unit in north Lincoln. It came to my attention because I know the victim, Steve, and he told me about the crime. Somebody clipped the padlock on his unit with bolt cutters, and made off with a trunk-load of goods. Among the stolen items were hundreds of jazz CDs.

The case was cleared when the suspects tried to sell the goods at a second-hand music/video/game store. I guess the people that showed up trying to offload the collection just didn't look like fans of classic jazz, and the owner was suspicious. He contacted us, and within a few days we had arrested three suspects--all meth addicts, two of whom are recently released from prison.

Before the arrests were made, I quizzed Steve about his padlock, and told him to get a disc lock. A few days ago, he confirmed that he had done so. Several years ago during an ACUDAT meeting, we were examining a spate of storage unit burglaries. During the discussion, Det. Sgt. Jeri Roeder mentioned that she rented a storage unit personally, and that the company required tenants to purchase a disc lock. She could never recall a case where one of these locks had been successfully attacked. No one else could either. From that point forward, the disc lock has been standard advice to owners and tenants of storage units.

This style of lock isn't a guarantee, but a standard padlock is a snap for a burglar armed with bolt cutters. Getting around a disc lock is a more complicated affair, and as we know, most burglars are essentially disorganized, lazy, and possessed of a rather short attention span. Let them move on to an easier target.

There have been 19 storage unit burglaries in Lincoln so far in 2008. The number has fallen like a rock over the past decade. I would attribute this in part to our efforts to promote better locks, in part to better physical security by complex owners, and in part to the proliferation of video surveillance systems. That's a very nice trend line.