Beer burglars return

Ah, spring: the daffodils, the pansies, and the burglars. As the weather warms, the thieves awake from their winter hibernation. Thirstier than ever, they prowl the 'burbs looking for the lucrative target: an open garage equpped with a fridge.

We had two "beer burglaries" over the weekend. I'm not sure if the bottle of Woodbridge chardonnay counts. Needless to say, that one was at the far southern edge of the city. The Rockets do not drink chardonnay.

Beer burglaries, of course, are vastly under-reported. Victims either don't bother to call the police, or in some cases don't realize exactly why the inventory has been shrinking. These cases normally occur in the evening, prior to ma and pa's bedtime. Too many people leave the garage door open until the lights are shut off for the night:

Although it is likely reported at a low rate in relation to the actual incidence, the crime shows a distinctivepattern that is rather obvious to Lincoln residents:


The clusters on this map simply depict the parts of Lincoln where you are likely to find garages with spare refrigerators therein. The tilt towards the southeast is apparent with a healthy dose of the Highlands in the northwest, and Regent Heights in the northeast.

Beer isn't the only target of garage shopping, though. Golf clubs, for example, were taken in 22 residential burglaries last year. Think about it: a thousand dollars worth of thunder sticks in a tidy package with a convenient carrying handle. Tools and bicycles are also particularly vulnerable to this type of open garage door theft.

Last May, I reported on an elegantly simple project the Southeast Team was engaged in to reduce these burglaries. They finished the year with 83 open garage burglaries, 43 fewer than their average in the preceeding three years--a reduction of 34%. Not bad at all.