I’m receiving a larger number of emails and phone calls about property theft/burglaries this month and last. This time of year is seemingly high theft season:
If you’re home or off at work or on vacation, make sure that everything is locked up securely. This includes backyard gates, all doors to your garage, doors from your rear yard to your house and doggy doors when not in use.
Suspicious people loitering, lingering, wandering around going door to door or up on properties in your neighborhood at night should be reported to dispatch as being suspicious. Describe their behavior to the dispatcher. If they have a vehicle, get a good description of everything and be a good witness. Call immediately, don’t wait. 874-5115. Don’t tell them you’re calling the cops or tip them off. DON”T FOLLOW OR CONFRONT.
If someone knocks or rings your doorbell, talk through the door. Teach your kids to talk through the door, but not to open it.
Leave lights on timers on inside your home. Have timers go off in different parts of your house at different times to mimic that you’re actually home.
If you have a work vehicle or trailer, and it contains tools it is a target if it is parked on your driveway or street.
Work vehicles/trailers containing tools must be parked in an enclosed yard or garage. In the Arden area we are having multiple reports of trailer hasps being cut with saws and metal around the hasps being sawed to enter and steal high dollar items. Lots of $150 to $3,000 bikes being stolen. Also many vehicle break-ins and gas thefts and numerous mail thefts in many areas of the county. Cars and motorcycles and dirt bikes and power tools and hand tools and coins, any and all electronic digital cameras and laptops, phones and presents in the car or wrapped under the tree, designer goods; eye glasses to shoes, cash, guns, jewelry, alcohol are being stolen. LOCK UP VALUABLES. Buy an engraver and put your driver’s license number on expensive tools and bikes.
Check your mailbox regularly if your mail is coming late in the day. Don’t leave mail overnight in your box. Report mail theft to the US Post office or to the Sheriff’s Department. Report ID theft/ fraud to the Sheriff’s Department. NEVER mail outgoing mail from your mailbox. If you see someone taking mail, call emergency line 874-5111.
If you have a vacant house nearby please or know that your neighbor is gone, be alert to unusual lights/activity in the house/garage at night. Call 9-1-1 if you think that a burglar may be there. The early cover of darkness and , cold and rain will keep most people inside as soon as they get home. Its perfect weather for burglars.
When you shop, go store to store or arrive home, take everything, out of your vehicle. Never leave anything including jackets or bags.
Finally, please go and visit the elderly neighbors down the street. See if they have their heat on, if they need to take a trip to the grocery store or might need someone to talk to.
Sherrie Carhart
Crime Prevention Specialist
North Division
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round... as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.
