Don't be a victim

I blogged last week about the police department's efforts to reduce residential burglary by notifying people when their garage door is standing open. There is another type of garage burglary, however, that is even more concerning. This one applies only to people who have an attached garage.

A good example happened yesterday morning (B4-038801), in far south Lincoln. At about 4:45 AM, a couple sleeping in their upstairs bedroom heard a familiar sound: a creaking noise they recognized as the door between their attached garage and the house.  Upon investigating, they discovered that someone had apparently entered their garage through the unlocked walk-in door, gone from the garage into the house through the unlocked connecting door, then took the wife's purse off a shelf right inside.

This is a modus operandi that we have experienced before. It is very disconcerting to know that you've not only been the victim of a burglary, but that the criminal was actually right inside your house while the family slept. This type of burglary takes advantage of this common habit: men almost always deposit their wallet on the nightstand or on top of the dresser in the bedroom. Women, however, usually stow their purse very near the back door; on an entry table, for example, or on the kitchen counter.

So, in addition to making sure your garage door is closed, also check the walk-in doors, and give some thought to installing a good sturdy deadbolt with at least a one-inch throw on that exterior door into the garage--which is usually the most vulnerable point of all.

Burglary prevention

Overnight, officers of the Lincoln Police Department's Southeast Team were busy searching for open garage doors. They were able to get 15 of those buttoned back up during the wee hours of the morning. Nice work by Officers Sears, Arnold, Schaaf, and Hellmuth. I suspect that when a police officer lets you know you left your door open, you will develop a habit of double checking thereafter.

If you're curious why this simple activity is so valuable, you can go back almost to the beginning of this blog, back in May, 2007. It has been an incredibly useful strategy for preventing burglary. In 2005, there were 178 burglaries through garage doors that were simply left standing open. Last year, there were 32. So far this year, there have been 8.

No reason not to

I had a speaking engagement yesterday at the Lincoln Realtors Association. It's one of five I have this week, all with different topics. For this one, I told the realtors about the value of crimemapping.com, our public crime mapping application from the Omega Group. Of particular interest to real estate agents, I would think, is crime alerts--the feature that provides the ability to sign up for automatic email alerts when one of these selected crimes is reported within proximity to the address you have selected.

I know I've blogged about this on a few past occasions, but this is my annual push to remind as many people as possible that this services is available at no cost. I love crime alerts. I am subscribed to the area within 500 feet of my own home address, my son's home in Lincoln, and my daughter's home in Omaha. Even though I have plenty of access to the police records management system, I simply would miss some of these crimes due to the sheer volume of what goes on in Lincoln on a typical day, were it not for crime alerts.

Crime alerts are a great way to learn about crimes in your immediate surroundings. In my case, a little more awareness of the kinds of crimes that occur in my neighborhood has caused me to change two habits in a way that makes it less likely I will be a victim--again.

Sign up. Spread the word. If you live in an area covered by crimemapping.com, which includes hundreds of cities and counties, there is no reason not to.

Contact appreciated

Long-time readers of the Chief’s Corner know that I frequently hold up a particular problem-oriented policing project as one of the best example of how data, analysis, and a simple-but-clever crime prevention strategy has dramatically impacted a pernicious crime problem in Lincoln. 



I remember some officers being concerned that waking people up in the wee hours of the morning might not be so well received.  On the contrary, our experience is that people are quite appreciative of the effort, and glad that we let them know.  Here’s an example, that I received yesterday:

“Just wanted to give a Thank You to the Officer who was on my doorstep this morning at 2:30 am - I was a little groggy and I'm not even sure I said anything to him.  He came to our door to alert us that we hadn't shut our garage door last night after we came home from the grocery store.  We had the garage door light on and were advertising it quite well when he must have driven by.  I really appreciate the notification and patience while I figured out that my door bell was ringing before I came down stairs!”

I get this kind of feedback regularly, often in person by someone who recognizes me at the restaurant, coffee shop, or hardware store.  It makes quite a lasting impression when Officer Reed Pavelka is introducing himself on your front steps at 2:30 AM, and reinforces the habit of checking the garage door before bedtime for the next six generations. 

So far this year, Lincoln police officers have talked to citizens in their flannel jammies and fuzzy slippers (the citizens, that is, not the officers—I think) 142 times.  It is widely appreciated, and is the cause of the effect evident in that graph. That is a 59% decrease in open garage door burglaries, and it has driven the 27% decline in rate of all residential burglaries over the past three years. 

Parcel security

Officer Steve Standley, a skilled veteran of 36 years, has intitiated a problem-oriented policing (POP) project aimed at a crime type that surfaced last year: theft of parcel deliveries.  In Steve's Southeast Lincoln team area alone, there was a loss of goods valued at over $5,000 during the holiday season in 2009.  The M.O. is pretty straightforward: the thieves watch the courier make a delivery, then sneak up and snatch the parcel off the porch or patio.

Creating more awareness of this crime is part of Steve's strategy.  Yesterday, he alerted his fellow officers to be on the look out for anyone lurking in a residential neighborhood while FedEx and UPS drivers are making their rounds.  He's especially interested in anyone who might be parked in a car or idling at the curb a block or so down the street as a delivery is made. 

Today, he has enlisted my help to spread this same word to the general public. You are our eyes and ears.  There are only 321 of us, but there are 255,000 residents in Lincoln, who are far more likely to spot this kind of suspicious behavior.  If you are retired, a stay-at-home parent, or a shift worker who is around the house during the daytime, you are a particularly valuable crime prevention asset right now.  These deliveries are almost always between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM, and that's when the snatches occur. 

Keep your eyes peeled, and please call us ASAP if you see anything that looks like a parcel theft, surveillance of a delivery, or anything else that appears odd.  It could be the set up to one of these thefts.  Don't worry about bothering us, and don't hesitate because of uncertainty--we'll check it out, and if there is a legitimate explanation, no harm has been done. 

Good luck, Steve.

Protect your pumpkin

No, this isn't a warning about the controversy du jour regarding helmet-to-helmet hits in college and professional football.  Rather, it is my annual warning about the upswing in gourd-related offenses.  It's already started, and the mailboxes, rear view mirrors and car windows are my chief concern.  If you leave the ammo out on your front stoop, you shouldn't be entirely surprised when the vandals take advantage of it.  But the $50 destruction of your mailbox by a pumpkin tossed from a passing car, or a couple hundred for your rear windshield is another matter.  That's a significant crime. 

The chances of catching a pumpkin flinging Grand Am are slim.  The chances that the juvenile offenders will suffer an appropriate consequence and that the victims will be made whole is even slimmer.  Thus, prevention is the key.  The formula is pretty simple.  Protect your pumpkins.  Not so much from theft, but from use to destroy your neighbor's property.  Pull them inside off the steps for the next few nights as you are double checking your garage door.  While your at it, move your daughter's car from the street into the driveway.  Yes, I know you'll have to move it again so you can get out to go to work in the morning, but please indulge me for just a few days.  You'll be glad you did.

Lock or not

An interesting comment at 12:12 on my Wednesday post dealt with the efficacy of locking your car as a deterrent to the crime of larceny from auto:

“I don't think it matters anymore whether the items are in view or hidden, or whether the car is locked or not. These car break-ins are happening almost daily in the parking lots…”

A few minutes later, another comment at 1:32 said,

“I'm pretty sure that the Chief can destroy that argument, with one hand tied behind his back.”

Let’s see if I can live up to that vote of confidence.  I’m not so certain. A seasoned fellow employee whose opinion I trust a great deal made the argument to me a few weeks ago that in some cases, it’s better to leave your car unlocked.  His rationale was this: his daughter’s car had been broken into, even when there was nothing of value inside.  The risk of loss from a stolen stereo, purse, iPod, sunglasses, etc. was effectively nil, but the cost of replacing the broken window was considerable.  She would have been better off, he reasoned, if the thieves would have just opened the door, rummaged around, and figured that there was nothing worth taking.

There is, however, the car itself.  I hate to disagree, but to my way of thinking, anything you do that causes the criminal to expend more energy, take more time, make more noise, and generally expose himself to more risk is a good strategy in the long run.  To illustrate, I looked at all larcenies from auto so far this year.   There have been 1,078 through the end of June. Of those, 454 (42%) of the vehicles were unlocked.  Entry was gained by breaking a window in 210 cases (19%).  In the remainder, either the lock was slipped or the method of entry was unknown.  I do not doubt that many of those cases actually involved an unlocked door, but the victim wasn’t aware (or didn’t want to admit) that the vehicle was unlocked.

This evidence would suggest that locking up is the best policy—despite the slight risk of a glass break.  One of the final comments from Wednesday’s topic (10:07 July 1) summed up my viewpoint quite well:

“Most appealing LFA:

1. Visible loot, unlocked door
2. No visible loot, unlocked door (toss car for any loot, maybe even the keys will be in the glove compartment)
3. Visible loot, locked door
4. No visible loot, locked door
As you go down the list, the risk vs reward gets less and less appealing. If given a choice of something higher on the list vs something lower on the list, the crook will almost always choose the higher option. There is always some dummy who at least does #3, if not #2, or even #1. Make sure that you're only offering option #4”

Beer burglars back

I've blogged on many occasions about garage-shopping, and our strategies to reduce it.  It's spring, though, and after the yard work is done and the game of horse has been played in the driveway, the garage doors are increasingly left up while no one is watching.

Garage shopping is a crime in which the burglars simply cruise around looking for garage doors that are standing open, then help themselves to the goods.  Many of the valuables in your garage have wheels or handles that make them easy prey--things like tool boxes, golf bags, bicycles, and so forth. One of the common targets, however, lacks wheels and handles, but is nonetheless quite popular:  beer. In my neighborhood, many people around have a spare refrigerator in the garage, and a thief can be reasonably certain that a garage fridge contains the golden elixir.  There thefts occur in the evening hours, for the most part, often when its still light out and the residents are at home.  A few of these have occurred in my neighborhood this month, and in two of those cases the thirsty suspect was spotted getting into a gold Honda Odyssey minivan.  I'm keeping an eye peeled for that one. 

The more people keep that garage door buttoned up, the less exposed they are to these crimes.  We've been pretty successful in driving down the overall numbers.  When I checked this morning, I see that we have had 25 burglaries through open garage doors so far this year.  Just five years ago, in 2005, that number stood at 87 on May 12.  That's quite a drop, and I attribute it to good police work by our late shift officers, who so far this year have rang 225 doorbells to let homeowners know they forgot to button up.

Vulnerable places

At our most recent ACUDAT meeting a couple weeks ago, we noted a series of thefts of purses from autos in the parking lots at health clubs: Gold’s Gym, Prairie Life, the Woods Park Tennis Center, Five Willows, to name a few. These are not new, but it was unusual to have several of these in short order during the dead of winter and spread around town.

We also noticed several thefts from parked cars in the downtown area, late at night while the owner was away at one of the local watering holes or a movie.

These are all examples of places where a purse left in a car is vulnerable, because it is fairly obvious that the owner of the car will be away for a while. The thief simply has to wait until the coast is clear, smash a window, and make off with the purse. Aside from the loss of any cash, the victim has to cancel credit cards, obtain a new driver’s license, watch her accounts like a hawk, and worry about identity theft.

There’s not a easy fix for this, but there are a couple things people could do to reduce the chance they will fall prey. First, make sure all your valuables are out of sight—preferably in the trunk. This isn’t a guarantee, but a purse on the floorboard or seat is a sitting duck to a thief that is window shopping.

If you are going to a place you don’t like to carry your purse into, such as your health club, the movies, or a bar, it would make sense to leave your purse at home and just take your driver’s license, if possible. Stuff it in the side pocket of your gym bag, or the pocket of your jeans and leave the purse at home.

With spring coming, trailheads, dog runs, swimming pools, softball fields, and similar outdoor sports venues will pop up as additional places where purses left in cars are in particular jeopardy. The same advice applies: don’t take it, use a fanny pack, or at least lock it in the trunk.

This is a topic I’ve touched on before, but it bears repeating. There are always going to be crimes like this that exploit vulnerabilities, and we would like to prevent as many as possible. It’s not a good feeling knowing that some cretin has you name and ID, and knows where you live.

Where you are not

Where are you? Office? Meeting? Class? Lunch? Vacation? Lots of people want to know. It’s easy these days to keep others advised of your whereabouts. A local reader of the Chief’s Corner reminded me of this yesterday. Your family can follow you, you can let colleagues know how close you are to arriving, you can keep your friends up to date on your travels, all automatically.

There’s an app for that, and lots of free ones will take advantage of your new phone’s GPS capabilities to provide a feed or your current latitude and longitude. You can publish that live if you wish, or invite friends to view it. Go ahead, put a gadget on your Facebook page so readers can see your current location on a map. Even if your phone is not GPS-enabled, if you are giving regular updates on your activities via Twitter or even uploading today’s ski slope photos to Flickr, you are providing people with near-real time information about your location.

Here’s the problem: if the whole world knows where you are, it also knows where you are not--home. And that’s where your Browning Citori, Rolex Oyster Perpetual, Sony LCD television, Nintendo Wii, and the signed album cover for Midnight Ride all reside. Hope they are still there when you tweet to let your followers know that you have returned from that ski trip. I’m sure glad you didn’t let all those uncollected newspapers pile up on your porch.

Still falling

On a few past occasions, I have blogged about our efforts to reduce party disturbance complaints. The trend in recent years has been good. I put together the 2009 data last week, and here's an update:



This is a huge reduction. Stop and think for a minute about the impact of 800 fewer party calls. Each of those required a minimum of two officers to be dispatched, and took several minutes to handle. A significant number of those required more officers, more time, Incident Reports, Citations, probable cause affidavits, Property Reports, and so forth. There would have been several that included resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. How many trips to the emergency room, or to Internal Affairs emerge from 800 wild party calls? How many thefts, robberies, fights, assaults, sexual assaults, drunk driving arrests occur at or as the result of 800 parties that have gotten to the point where the neighbors have called the police? We certainly have many examples of this collateral damage.

Particularly gratifying is the drop in chronic problems at the same place. The number of repeat calls to houses has fallen by 71% in the past five years.

These are some outstanding results, and reflect good police work behind some proven strategies that have been particularly effective. Nothing wrong with a party, so long as illegal activity isn't occurring and if it doesn't disturb the peace of the rest of the neighborhood.

Not listening

I keep telling them, but they are not listening.

Big retail weekend

Must have been a big weekend in the retail businesses. Compare last weekend's list of shoplifted goods with the quantity from this past weekend's 17 cases:

ORBIT MIST MANGO SURF GUM 1.49
REESE'S SNACK BAR CANDY 1.19
REESE'S FAST BREAK CANDY 1.49
DURACELL AA BATTERIES 5.33
M&M ICE CREAM COOKIE SANDWICH 1.69
SILVER ALTUS MP4 PLAYER 29.99
SILVER BOULLION INTERNATIONAL BRACELET 11.99
SILVER CURB BRACELET 11.99
BLACK/RE QUIKSILVER HOODED COAT 59.99
PINK TANK TOP 38.00
BLACK TANK TOP 58.00
ADDIDAS SHORTS 24.00
WHI LIQUID PAPER 22ML BOTTLE 2.29
RED 4 STAR MEMO PAD 6.99
MULIT 4 STAR WILLOW TREE ORNAMENT 12.00
WHI 4 STAR SNOWFLAKE NECKLACE 14.99
MULTI 4 STAR 2 STAR ORNAMENTS 7.98
CLEAN LIQUID MAKEUP 4.50
NAIL POLISH REMOVER 4.50
AUGEN NETBOOK PC 159.00
PHILLIPS 18 GAUGE SPEAKER WIRE 14.99
WHT IPOD CHARGING KIT 24.99
JACKASS, THE NOTEBOOK, 7 POUNDS MOVIES 44.97
IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA MOVIES (3) 92.97
BLU ALMOST FAMOUS BLUE JEANS. 29.99
UNK BIC VELOCITY PENCIL 3.15
SCU BASIC HDWRP 4.85
PM MEGA PENCIL PACK 2.89
SIL JARU HANDCUFFS 7.15
BIC VELOCITY PENCIL 3.15
BIC MATCH PENCIL 3.55
PM CPNT MECHANICAL PENCIL 4.59
DURACELL 2 PACKAGES AA BATTERY'S 7.90
ENERGIZER 3 PACKAGES AA BATTERY'S 11.97
DURACE 1 PACKAGE 8 PACK BATTERY'S 5.75
BEST CHOICE 3 LIGHTERS 4.02
SMIRNOFF VODKA 100 PROOF, BLUE LABEL 17.99
GRAY/BLA ECKO T-SHIRT WITH DESIGN 28.00

Alerted and forewarned

Crime Alerts fired up twice this week in my neighborhood. I am subscribed to incidents within a quarter mile of my home. Whenever a crime report hits the police department’s records system and is within that buffer, I get an email with the details.

The two I received this week were both residential burglaries in the wee hours of the morning through unlocked (and in one case, open) garage doors. In both cases the burglar stepped into the house through the also-unlocked connecting door, and took items within immediate reach—including purses. Since these two crimes happened in the same area with the same M.O. three days apart, I suspect they may be related, and there may be someone prowling the neighborhood. In one case, noise pinpointed the time at 4:54 AM.

I probably would not have known about these crimes right here in Cripple Creek had it not been for the Crime Alerts. I’m double checking my garage, and when I get up at around 5:00 AM to write my blog and read police reports, I’m spending a few minutes in the dark of the living room, watching for movement outside.

I would like more people in Lincoln to be similarly informed, which is why I’ve tried to promote Crime Alerts at every opportunity. We have 1,497 people subscribed right now. That’s almost triple the next-closest city, but still a very small number in my mind. It’s free, easy, and won’t deluge you with unwanted email, unless you pick a buffer that’s too big. I suggest a half mile, quarter mile or 500 ft. (about a block and a half.)

The Omega Group has signed up several more cities for the crimemapping.com service lately, including a nice application in Omaha, so if you’re an Omaha resident, you can get Crime Alerts, too. I’ve also signed up there, for a half mile buffer around my daughter’s home.

Fight crime: invest in kids

Yesterday’s case, last month’s case, and a lifetime of experience like this has convinced me that helping children, new parents, and young families is our best chance of preventing outcomes like this. Quality child care, afterschool programs, early childhood education, parenting education, mentoring, visiting home nurses, are not a panacea. Nothing can take the place of a loving, caring parent or two to whom you are bonded like glue from birth. But they all help.

These supports are especially important to kids who have special challenges to overcome—poverty, for example; or no parents, bad parents, and parents who are dealing with their own demons.

I’m not alone in feeling this way. There are around 5,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, and prosecutors who believe in this strongly enough that they, too, have joined this non-partisan nonprofit organization, which seeks to add the voice of law enforcement experience to the call to help kids grow and prosper by investing in prevention. It was my pleasure to host their news conference here in Lincoln this week.

Park thieves caught in act

Thefts from cars parked at trailheads, recreation centers, and City parks is a topic that comes up frequently at our monthly ACUDAT meetings. Just last week, I handed Capt. Mike Woolman a document with some analysis of the thefts of this type in Southwest Lincoln—the area hardest hit by these crimes so far this year. The analysis showed that most of these were happening in the afternoons, and that Sunday was the most popular day.

Sgt. Mike Bassett fleshed out some more details from his own review of the individual cases. He learned, for example, that debit cards stolen in these thefts were often being used immediately, many in the Northwest part of Lincoln, and that on a few occasions multiple charges on the same stolen card were made at the same convenience store within a matter of minutes. It appeared the thief was calling friends and family over to fill up.

The Southwest Team redoubled its efforts. On Sunday afternoon, the Team had a bait car in place at this parking lot at the Jamaica North Trailhead, down at the southern tip of Lincoln’s Wilderness Park:

Sgt. Bassett had the bait car under surveillance in Wilderness Park when a pair of thieves struck. He deployed a set of Stop Sticks to prevent the thieves (who arrived in a van) from exiting. You can see how valuable that was, given the layout of the parking area. There's only one way in, and one way out, unless you are on two wheels, four hoofs, or a pair of feet.


View Larger Map

Two arrests were quickly made. Further investigation led to a third person, and the recovery of a large amount of stolen property from various thefts and burglaries. There will be a lot more investigation as a result, and I expect that we will clear several other crimes and make felony arrests.

This was excellent work. I am hopeful that these arrests slow these crimes down. Experience, however, teaches that there are always new crooks in the wings, and that arrests doesn’t always result in the defendant mending his or her ways. Thus, prevention efforts are still strongly recommended.

Keep it simple

A crime analyst from another state got in touch with me yesterday. I'm not sure she would want to be identified, so I'll keep it anonymous for the time being. She is in the envious position of starting up a new crime analysis unit from scratch, and has been engaged in getting a lot of good training—a real luxury for most new analysts. She and her manager jumped into a webconference with me earlier this year, and she was now seeking my advice on the next step:

“In your experience, what would you consider to be the 3 or 4 most important things I could/should be doing (or products I should be producing)? I really want to make a difference here and do this job to the best of my ability.”

After replying, It struck me that my response might be valuable to other analysts who struggle with the same fundamental question, so here it is:

“Of course I remember talking to you. Glad you are moving forward. Your number one job is to provide timely, actionable information to officers and supervisors about important things they would not have known about otherwise. Make sure it's:

TIMELY

ACTIONABLE

IMPORTANT

...and not already obvious. An email from the crime analysis unit that tells everyone what they already know isn't especially helpful. All these things are relative. The theft of iPods from lockers at schools may not be a critical issue of public safety, but every one of those larceny/thefts counts as ONE part 1 crime--the same as a murder--so they may be important (particularly taken as a whole). It may not be entirely within the ability of the police department to prevent, but on the other hand I can think of a half-dozen action steps that we might engage in to prevent or interrupt such offenses. I may not realize just how common this crime is, or that I'm not the only officer who's investigated these, or that they are almost all in the girls locker room, or that the schools that don't allow students to bring these are immune from these crimes, or that the dollar loss actually exceeds the net from armed robberies this year, or that several of the victims have been members of athletic teams and have occurred during practice ...and so forth.

The best way to establish your credibility is to focus as much of your time as possible on providing such information, and not letting your day be entirely consumed with producing meaningless bar charts or reports for the brass, that have no utility for the women and men who have to do something to impact crime and disorder in your city. You're getting the Cadillac training, but I'm going to urge you to go slow and keep it simple. If you want to really cause eyes to glaze over, create a map of a crime series with a convex hull, ordered labels, and a set of standard deviation ellipses with a prognostication about the most likely date range of the next offense in the series.

Ask officers, sergeants, and detectives: "Is this worthwhile? What else would you find useful, or what would be useful instead of this?" With management-types (chiefs included) don't just point out the crime trend or pattern, suggest ways that it might be changed: "Do you think there is any chance that we could talk the other principals into prohibiting iPods at school?" Become an expert at this by reading everything you can at popcenter.org about the crime trends and patterns that are problems in your city.

I am attaching a document with three pretty easy ideas. This is low-hanging fruit, if it hasn't already been picked. I hope this helps.”

Learn and share

Just got home Saturday from a trip to the Omega Group User's Conference in San Diego, where I had been invited to deliver the keynote address. The Omega Group is the maker of CrimeView, our analytical mapping software, and the provider of crimemapping.com. By San Diego standards, it was cool--I actually needed a sweater. The blast of winter-in-April that awaited us upon return, however, was...bracing.

The theme of my keynote was threefold: use the results of your analysis to support more and better prevention projects; move beyond static maps, bulletins and other products to interactive content; prepare yourself for a future where your ability to manage data and information is a key to effective policing.

On that subject, it is remarkable to me to think back on how things have changed in the past decade or so. From a hotel room in California, I could attend our daily shift briefings, keep up on police reports and case files, and attend to the blog--not to mention the huge volume of daily email.

I had the chance to meet in person a couple of people I've assisted via telephone and web conference. Cesar Abreu, the supervisor of the Crime Analysis and Intelligence Unit at the Yakima, WA police department was in attendance. He is in the process of ramping up a GIS operation within his unit, and got some nice press on the efforts recently.

I also met up with Sgt. Rick Fisher, of the Gulfport, MS police. Gulfport, you will recall, was demolished by hurricane Katrina. Police headquarters was among the casualties. When I first talked to Rick, the department was operating out of trailers. They've now moved to a former school, while there headquarters is being constructed. Rick has had the opportunity to start up a crime mapping and analysis operation as well.

It was a pleasure to give some advice and information to Cesar and Rick, and I enjoyed meeting them in person. I picked up several good tips during the conference, and I hope I've shared some of my own with others.

We’d like to get your Wii back

Det. Sgt. Luke Wilke caught me in the hall the other day. He’s responsible for coordinating follow-up investigation on residential burglaries, and is getting a little frustrated at the frequency with which Playstations, Xboxes, and Wiis are being ripped off, but the victim has no serial number. I found 39 cases since the first of the year where one of these game systems was lifted in a burglary or theft. We have the serial number in only 17 of those cases. Those with serial numbers are posted on the stolen property listing on our public website.

Several times each year, we will locate a load of goods that we just know are stolen, but we are unable to match up the goods with a corresponding crime report. Often the property ends up with unidentified ownership, and eventually is disposed of at public auction.

So, do this for me: get your Xbox right now, flip it around, and jot down the serial number on a Post-it note. Take that over to your bookshelf, open the dictionary to the word “hermetic,” and stick the note on that page for future reference. Might as well do the same with your other CRAVED products while you’re at it. Thanks.

Now and later

It has happened again. After a string of unusually bold residential burglaries near 84th and Holdrege Street ten days ago, we were hit again—hard—yesterday by the same M.O.. We are now up to 28 burglaries or attempted burglaries overnight from the 17th to the 18th in which the theives entered (or attempted to enter) through the side or back walk-in door to the garage, and from there into the house while the residents slept. The burglars don’t penetrate very far—they generally have grabbed a nearby purse and split.

It just boggles my mind that none of the victims (or their dogs) have been awakened. Although certainly not unknown, this isn’t a particularly common burglary method. Burglars generally avoid occupied residences scrupulously. You never know when you’ll encounter a light sleeper with a 12-gauge and a bad temper—or a Dalmatian with the same. Although the walk-in garage door is a common entry point, you’re normally investigating a daytime or weekend burglary that occurred while the occupants were away.

The problem we now have is that the burglar(s) have succeeded in a pretty big way, which will not only encourage them to continue, but also inspire other burglars to pick up this method. I need everyone with an attached garage and a walk-in door to do two things: one now, and one later. Now, start locking the passage door between your garage and the house—religiously. Later, stimulate the economy: visit the home improvement store this weekend, buy the baddest deadbolt lock you can stand to fork out the cash for, and put that Makita and Rotozip to work for a change. Look over the door frame and jamb, too. You want to beef that baby up, so that a burglar would need more time, and make more noise. They don’t like that at all, and will move on. The last thing you’d want in this type of crime is to rouse the homeowners.

The security of that walk-in door needs to be at least as good as your front door—actually, better, since it’s more vulnerable due to concealment. These doors (are often pathetic: weak jambs, with cheap key-in-knob locks. A screwdriver is all it took.

The two neighborhoods hit yesterday were around Stonebridge, near Wilderness Ridge Rd. and Yankee Hill Rd., and Cripple Creek, near S. 44th and Elkridge. The later is my neighborhood. There are several police officers, troopers, and deputies who live in both of these areas. As you might be able to tell from the time I write my blog posts, I’m a light sleeper.