I’m still waiting on the final report for St. Pat’s, but it looks like the event went off smoothly with no major problems thanks to some excellent leadership at DPD and good stewardship of the event sponsors. The crime reports for February are below. Much like last Continue reading “February 2013 Crime Report”

The crime reports for January are below. We had a little jump in crime this month, just like we did last year in January 2012. This seems mostly due to a string of car break-ins and a few extra home burglaries. Both are detailed below. We also saw two robberies this month, both were “stick-ups” at local businesses (Dominos and 7/11). Police believe it may be the same suspect.

On March 14, LGNA will be installing hundreds of No Parking signs throughout the neighborhood. We need a couple dozen volunteers to help with this. You can knock out a street in about 30-40 minutes. Please come out and help us make quick work of this. Its a highly organized ritual and everything will be waiting for you, all you need to bring is a hammer. (If you forget it, we’ll probably have one for you to borrow.)

Car Break-ins (BMVs)

There was a string of car breakins in the area south of Belmont beleived to be the work of a duo. They were witnessed breaking into a vehicle on Oram. Police were able to arrest a pair of suspects a few blocks away. They were covered in blood and glass cuts and carrying the stolen goodies from the vehicle on Oram. (Police also found heroin paraphenalia on them.) Unfortunately, the victim declined to prosecute, so these guys are back on the street again. Police have their mugshots handy and will be on the look out for us. The suspects were described as two latin males in a red Ford Pickup. This pair was also witnessed by another resident. In both cases, one stayed in the vehicle while the other broke out a window to get access to the inside of the car. If you see someone acting in the manner, please call 911 right away and get a license plate if possible.

Burglaries

We’ve been doing much better on home burglaries over the last year. There were 7 this month in the area between Mockingbird and Llano, the north part of the neighborhood. Of these 7, 1 was a known suspect and another was a garage burglary. The remaining five all involved a forced entry from the rear with a theft of TV, laptops and jewelry. Its possible these could be connected. Not too long ago, I’d have been celebrating anything less than 10, but this is much higher than we’ve seen over the last year, so its possible we have a repeat offender in the area. Please take the usual precautions, light up the backyard at night and make sure that windows and doors are securely locked.

Special Events

March is upon us, and we all know what that means…. Two weekends in a row with parking problems and street closures. March 16th is the annual St. Pat’s event. I will be sending out an additional warning prior to the event, but in the meantime look for detailed info in the LGNA newsletter or the St. Pats Event Info on this site. The following weekend, the Rock ‘n Roll Dallas Half Marathon will be coming through the neighborhood. It will cross Central at McCommas, zig zag up to Greenville, up to Mockingbird and then come down Skillman to Swiss. There will be road closures in the area from 7am to 11:30am. There should be a more detailed info sheet hanging on your doorknob.

The crime reports for December are below. Another good month on the overall numbers with only two residential burglaries. No violent crimes this month, but we do continue to see car break-ins, mostly unlocked vehicles left on the street.

Be sure to join us at the next LGNA Meeting at the Greenland Hills UMC. The meeting is Jan 31, 7pm. I’ll be doing an update on the year-over-year improvements we made with regard to crime numbers. In addition, our ENP officer will be on hand to talk about some of the things he’s working on. We’ll also have an officer from Central Patrol to talk about what’s going on in the areas around us and how we can take precautions.

Update on the Attorney Found Beaten

Many of you have been following the story about the attorney who lived along Matilda who was found beaten on Lowest Greenville. An arrest has been made in the case. It appears that someone the victim had been involved with in a previous altercation happened to see him passing by. He apparently attempted to take revenge for the previous altercation and attacked the victim who fell and hit his head on the concrete. So this was not a random attack, both parties are regulars on Lowest Greenville.

The crime reports for November are below. Another good month on the overall numbers with only two residential burglaries. Two of the robberies I mentioned last time are shown below in this month’s report. No robberies have been reported thus far in December. Last month, I had given you some safety tips for the holidays, one thing I forgot to mention is to avoid having packages shipped to your home where they might be left on the porch. One option is to have them delivered to your office. Another option is to ask the sender to require a signature. But you can also have your packages sent to the UPS Store at Mockingbird and Greenville. They will receive and hold your packages until it is convenient for you to pick them up during normal business hours. They normally charge for this, but if you mention that you heard about it from the LGNA crime watch, they’ll waive the fee.

Attorney Found Beaten

One of our neighbors, a resident near Matilda & Lewis, was found beaten last Friday night near the front of The Crown & Harp (formerly the Cavern.) This is about a block from his townhome. The story has been in the media quite a bit, but police have very little concrete information so far. After having drinks in Uptown, the victim took a cab to near his home. He was picked up by the taxi in Uptown at 1:30am and was found beaten about 30 minutes later, so this happened in a very narrow window of time. Robbery does not appear to be the motive since his valuables were still on him. This was a very grave incident and the victim is still in a medically induced coma. There is a lot of speculation about what happened and potential motives, but it is purely speculation at this time. DPD could use your help. If you happened to have been in the area at the time and saw anything, please let DPD know.

Thieves Steal the Darndest Things

Two theft trends this month. The first is tires/wheels. There were three incidents this month of tires or wheels being stolen off of vehicles. They occurred on Penrose, Vanderbilt and Morningside all on different days. In two of the cases, they stole the tires off the car, while in the other case they stole only a spare. Our ENP officer tells me this is an easy score for the thieves during the holidays as the wheels are easy to convert to cash.  Also this month, we got a visit from the planter thieves. Two neighbors on Llano both had large planters stolen from their front porch. The good news is that these guys seem to have been caught. The media is reporting that just a few days ago, an arrest was made. These guys had been selling them to a third party who was in turn then reselling them. The thieves turned in the “fence” and all four have been arrested. These thefts had been happening all over town and video surveillance from a home in Highland Park led to a lead which helped police wrap up the case.

 Chop Shop Shut Down

For some time now, our ENP officer has been watching a home in the 6000 block of Belmont. It has been the source of numerous complaints from neighbors on that block. There had been a previous robbery (between known acquaintances) at the site and one of the parties involved was known to be connected to a gang. In the last week of November, in responding to a disturbance call, police discovered a stolen vehicle in the backyard. Other units were called in. It looks like these guys had been operating a chop shop in Oak Cliff but had just recently moved it to our area. Its been shut down now and last I heard there had been an arrest, other arrests possibly to come. Our ENP officer is contacting the landlord to discuss the benefits of doing criminal background checks on his future tenants. We’ll continue to watch the property on the ENP patrols to make sure the landlord doesn’t let this happen again.

The crime reports for October are below. We had a good month, with a lower overall number of incidents and only one home burglary. After a string of unfortunate violent incidents over the summer, there were no reports of serious violent crime in October in the report below. However, there was a driveway robbery in the 58xx block of Lewis last Friday. Two latin males, one armed with a copper-colored pistol robbed a man of his cash as he was going to his car at around 7:45pm. A woman saw the men approaching and thinking they looked suspicious, she quickly dashed into the house.
Smart lady.

Watch That Car

We had an unusual robbery occur last week that I wanted to let you know about. A valet operator on Greenville (near Goodwin) was talking on his phone. An older tan Ford drove up and as the attendant walked over to the car, they pulled him into the car and drove a short distance away before tossing him out of the car again. All this to steal his cell phone. While I hate to discourage anyone from being helpful, if someone calls you over to their vehicle to ask a question, stand far  enough away to avoid endangering yourself in this manner. While it may be our nature to get closer, a little distance might prevent a scenario like this.

Don’t Let The Grinch Steal Christmas

The Holidays are here. Over the next few weeks, a great many of us will be decorating the tree and opening our curtains for our neighbors to enjoy the lightshow. Just remember to close the curtains before you go to bed or when you leave the house. A tree with a pile of presents underneath makes for easy window shopping for criminals. Leaving the curtains open allows them to check out the loot at night and come back the next day when you’re at work. They can plan out exactly where they need to go and how to make their visit quick. So by all means, celebrate the holidays, but close up the curtains when you’re asleep or away.

And here are a few more tips courtesy of Mark Moynahan at the Wilshire Heights Crime Watch:
– Remove fall-related objects that might allow access to your home. For example, a ladder for cleaning leaves out of gutters can be used to enter windows or scale fences
– Don’t post Thanksgiving travel plans on Facebook, Twitter or other social media channels letting people know that you will be out of town
– Turn your telephone ringer down so no one outside can hear repeated rings; review your answering machine message to make sure it doesn’t imply that you are away
– Make sure to have all mail, newspapers, and deliveries stopped or picked up by  a neighbor, friend or relative
– Never leave a key hidden outside. Burglars know all the best hiding places
– Secure all windows, including those upstairs and reduce the chance of easy entry by cutting tree limbs away from second-story windows
– Have a friend move your car occasionally if it is parked in the driveway
– Use timers to operate lights