I went through a month’s worth of the Walnut Creek police department’s Daily Bulletin and found eight incidents between February 8 and March 8 that might fall into the kind of home break-ins that readers were talking about.
Here's one such example from the Daily Bulletin involving a March 3 burglary on Stallion Court: The call came in just after 5 p.m. when someone arrived home to find the back sliding glass door shattered and opened. The break-in occurred sometimes between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m..The master bedroom had been ransacked, and the thief had stolen jewelry.
These burglaries took place both in Lakewood but also in nearby neighborhoods southeast of downtown, including n the Walnut Heights area and close to the Walnut Creek Open Space. Like the above example, the crimes all involved a resident arriving home, usually late in the afternoon, to find a back glass door open or smashed. In almost all the cases, the thief went through the house, tearing through drawers and closets. Items stolen mostly included jewelry, but also cameras, TVs, a laptop, and a double-barrel shotgun.
Captain Timothy Schultz in early March the department began noticing “a trend in that area, took steps to deal with it, and arrested someone they believe was responsible for events” related to that trend.
He added that the department had compared crime statistics for the first two months of 2010 to those of the first two months of 2009 and “found no significant increase” in home burglaries.
Schultz added: “We encourage residents to become aware of what is going on in their neighborhood. One way they can increase their awareness is by becoming an active member of our Neighborhood Watch Program. Those wishing to join an existing group, or start a new group can call our Community Policing Team at (925) 943-5844. We also strongly encourage residents to call the police when they see something they believe is suspicious.” He also said residents can check out the home security tips on the department’s website.
8 comments:
In one house off Homestead the perps went through the doggie door.
They usually go for the quick grab stuff like jewelery that they can pawn quickly. Most crimes occur in the daytime.
If you get hit, insist on fingerprinting the place. I got hit 3 years ago, they printed and caught the guy. Nothing was recovered, we lost a ton of stuff.
An NRA sticker on your front window will work wonders.
If you think about it, our neighborhoods are easy pickings with so many two income households and so many people using contractors or other services which can easily notice our patterns. We have a tough as nails lady that's home during the day in our neighborhood and she'll pull right up behind people sitting in cars and take down the license plate.
Glad the PD caught someone though...
Our house got hit a couple years ago. Im pretty sure they were scoping out places. I work from home, left for a couple hours, came home and they came in through an unlock door on our patio. (my fault!) They were there for awhile, rummaging through drawers, but took odd things. Never caught them, fingered printed, but no luck. Found some paperwork of mine in Pleasanton behind some warehouse. WIth my paperwork was some packages in Lafeyette that were stolen off the front porch, etc.
Got a security system after that. but when WCPD were here, I said would it have made a difference? They said if the security system went off, they would get scared and run.
Lesson my brother learned many years ago: he was standing in his front yard chatting with the guy across the street while various workers were nearby. My brother happily mentioned to his neighbor that they were going away for the holiday weekend. You can guess what greeted them when they returned.
There was a home burglary during the day on Wednesday in Walnut Knolls, too.
Thanks for this article. Through my Shady Glen Rd CERT group, I heard a neighbor was burglarized during the day, on the 2nd. Yr article prompted me to check WCPD log; the SG burglary was not posted. We are county jurisdiction; checked there, found the SG burglary as well as one on Greenview on the 11th. My point is, WCPD does not list all crime in our area as many of us are unincorporated
Good news...
http://local.nixle.com/alert/1557964/
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