Perhaps one the most frustrating things is to have your car window smashed for a few bucks change in the ashtray. It happened to us a couple of months ago at the gym the perpetrator saw a black jacket inside our car and thought it was a purse and smashed out the driver side windshield.
Because this happens so often, I never leave anything in the car on the back seats or front seats. But having your car broken into is nothing compared to a criminal violating your home.
Most people think it will never happen to them, but when it does happen this horrible violation and intrusion of privacy is seared into the mind of the homeowner for the rest of their lives.
Unsuspecting homeowners don’t realize that their home is recognized by burglars as easy “bait” and has a big bull’s-eye written on the curb next to their address.
If a burglar sees this home he most likely will attempt to break into it.
Within a period of about three hours early Wednesday morning, there were three car burglaries in Rossmoor. But, attention Rossmore residents! Automobile break-ins are not our only problems. Here is what happened at one Rossmoor home – namely the home of this writer.
The car burglaries were all pretty routine and all very similar. Based on the recent wave of burglaries in Rossmoor, and the attendant heightened public awareness of safety tips, a couple of conclusions may be drawn from the most recent crimes.
Based on the car burglaries Wednesday morning, only one third of Rossmoor residents have learned that it is not a good idea to leave valuables in your car. That is to say, in two of the three burglaries, the bad guy got away with some property.
The stolen property included a briefcase, computer, cell phone, backpack, and school books. The property loss was valued at $3,300.00. In the third burglary, no property was taken.
The second lesson, which may be drawn from Wednesday’s burglaries, is that perhaps Rossmoor residents have finally learned to lock their cars. In all three of these crimes, car windows were smashed to gain entrance.
All of the Wednesday burglaries took place between midnight and 3:30 AM. The cars were parked on the street in front of the residences. In the two that occurred on Martha Ann, the residents were at home and asleep. In the crime on Bostonian, the car owner was out of town and a friend reported the incident.
No suspects were seen. Two of the crime scenes were around the 11,000 block of Martha Ann and one was on the 2,700 block of Bostonian.
Because of the similarity of the crimes and the timing, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department considers it likely the three burglaries were linked and potentially committed by the same people or person.
The next night, around 11:30 PM Wednesday, this writer’s home became a potential crime scene. I was not home at the time, but my family members were and they related the story.
At about 11:30 PM there was a knock on the side door. (We live on a corner, so the side door looks almost like a front door.) My sister saw through the door glass what appeared to be a woman wearing a hat and skirt. She also had a partial view of a dog on the porch with the woman. She was just about to open the door, when one of the men in the house told her to wait. He looked out and asked what the woman wanted.
The woman said that our dog had just gotten out of the backyard and she wanted to return it to us. That would probably have worked on most Rossmoor residents and the woman would have gained entrance into the house – with unknown consequences.
The trouble was, we are one of the few Rossmoor households that does not have a dog. While this brief conversation was continuing, upon further examination, it became clear that the woman on my porch was not a woman at all, but a man. Not only was she a he, but he was careful to prevent a clear view of his face by looking down and using the hat to obscure his face. When the he/she realized there was a man inside the house and that we did not own a dog, he took off.
So BEWARE! Keep your cars locked and valuables out of sight. And realize that when an unknown person is knocking on your door appearances can be deceptive and danger may be lurking.
Some things homeowners can do to make their home look like a fortress to criminals is to install security cameras, security lights and a security system with signs that lets them know that anytime they walk onto a property they are being fully detected and recorded for any criminal conduct.
