August 2011 Crime Reports

The crime reports for August 2011 are below. Again a fairly average month overall, though a few items of interest. There has been a slight uptick in auto thefts. In the past, 7-8 per month was not uncommon, but over the last two years, we’d gotten down to almost none. We’ve had four auto thefts (or attempted) each of the last two months. On at least two of the incidents this month, the theives were unsuccessful but they did cause damage to the vehicle. Don’t forget about our National Night Out at Tietze Park coming up on Oct 4th. Be looking for the flyer on your doorstep with more information.
Burglary Trends
Last month I told you about a cluster of burglaries that were occurring in the 5900/6000 blocks between Belmont and Velasco. Those have continued with 4 more this month. In addition there has been a series of thefts and burglaries in the 6000 blocks of Morningside, Mercedes and McCommas. There have been 6 burglaries in the last 3 weeks in this two block area. This follows a similar string of burglaries a few weeks earlier in Wilshire Heights were 4 homes were hit in one week. Our ENP officer and our regular patrol are aware of this and are taking steps to stop it.

Home But Not Alone
Two scary incidents this month. In one incident on Kenwood, a resident was sleeping on the couch with the front door unlocked. A white male, 50ish entered the home. He quickly left when the resident woke. Apparently he’d been handing out “curb painting” flyers. Our ENP officer is following up on this one. But as we’ve warned, be VERY leery of anyone selling this service. Lesson here, keep doors locked all the time, even when you are home. In a seperate incident, residents on McCommas had their home broken into in the middle of the night while they were upstairs asleep. Two males pried open the back door and came through the house carrying flashlights. When confronted, they fled out the rear of the home with a new laptop still in the box from the store. Use of flashlights and crowbars implies a slightly more sophisticated criminal than the usual, more sloppy kick-ins we get. The victim beleives that they had peered through the windows before breaking in based on some trampled bushes near where the computer had been sitting. Lesson here, much like with your car, don’t leave valuables visible from a window. Pull the curtains or put them in a closet.

A New MO
We had a theif do something a little more clever than normal this month. He broke into a car and used the garage remote to gain access to the garage where items were stolen. This could have been much worse had the garage been attached, making access to the house much easier. So far, we have not seen any other burglaries with this pattern, but we’ll be on the look out to see if it is a repeat offender. Along these lines, Wilshire Heights (just across Skillman from us) reports a car breakin last week ocurring in the driveway, not the street. It was left unlocked with valuables inside overnight. Its very unusual to have a car break-in up in the drive way, but a reminder to be vigilent about locking your car no matter where you park.