Our crime reports for April are below. We’re still doing well keeping the number of home break-ins down, but there were several robberies this month and quite a few car break-ins. The most visible issue this month was an unusual number of violent crimes. Two of these were aggravated assault cases involving a domestic violence incident where one party threatened the other with a gun. This is a problem that is far more common than most of us realize. The other four violent incidents were the robberies described below.

Robberies

We had several robberies this month. I sent you a crime alert about these recently. And in my last monthly report, DPD had already captured a group of suspects connected to at least one of the incidents below. However, the rest don’t appear to be connected. These are all very different crimes so I want to recap them:

4/15, Greenville at Mercedes, a woman had a purse forcibly pulled from her arm while walking on Greenville
4/16, Greenville at Richmond, a man was robbed of a phone while sitting in his vehicle at the Company Cafe, shots fired
4/17, Greenville at Bell, a man was pulled from his vehicle in a bar parking lot and robbed of cash, phone and shoes
4/24, Concho at Goodwin, a weed eater was stolen by force from a landscaper
4/28, Marquita at Delmar, a group returning from a restaraunt was robbed of cash and phones

In at least four of them, there were multiple robbers involved. Although the two on the 16th and 17th seem similar, DPD arrested the bad guys from the incident on the 16th but did not mention the incident on the 17th as being connected. The point is that these are all fairly different and likely not the same criminals. They happened at different times and involved different methods. Our ENP officer often describes our neighborhood as “target rich” due to the amount of people walking either from home or to cars parked too far away. So in other words, don’t be a target:
– Walk in groups when possible
– Try to avoid walking in dark areas, pick streets with more traffic and more light. (ie walk down Matilda, not Concho)
– Keep doors locked when inside the car
– Take a taxi home if the hour is too late

Since this cluster in the second half of April, we have not had any additional robberies in May, but these are good tips to keep in mind.

Car Break-ins
We’re up a little on car break-ins, 17 this month. You’d think most of this happened in the bar parking lots. But only 3 of the car break-ins occurred there. Eight were cars parked on the street in the residential part of the neighborhood. Three were in apartment parking lots, and two were parked in the driveway but left unlocked. I know we can do better than this if we exercise a little vigilance.

Any Little Opportunity
Just as a reminder to never let your guard down…. The car break in on April 6 listed below occurred at the 7/11 on the corner of Richmond. The victim locked his doors when he went into the store but had left the rear window cracked. In just a matter of a few minutes the bad guy managed to get in the car and steal some cash tucked into the visor. We’ve seen similar incidents at the Walgreens off Mockingbird in the past.