I’m publishing this post from our assistant editor who found her garage had been broken into when she was leaving for work on Monday morning. She is among many in her neighborhood who have been victims of crime, including a neighbor whose vehicle was stolen as the criminals held a gun on her. This is what the local law enforcement chooses to do to protect them:
Recently my husband and I had a break in on our property. Someone smashed out our garage window, and the windows on both of our cars. The cars and the garage were in shambles, and over $1500 in tools and car accessories were stolen, not to mention the cost of property damage.
I found the mess around 8:00 in the morning while leaving for work, and immediately called the police. They responded very quickly, and took down a report. We found that whoever had broken in had bled all over my husband’s car, probably having been cut on the window. When we called to ask the officer about DNA evidence, we were told that it wasn’t worth the cost of running the test.
On top of feeling completely violated, and disheartened, these words cause me to question several things about the reality I live in. The police in our neighborhood will pull you over for speeding, ticket you if you are parked backwards on the street in front of your own house, harass kids hanging out at the gas station, but apparently do not find serious crime nearly as important.
In the past 2 years, my husband and I have had tires slashed, cars egged, a dead cat placed in our trash can, and now our garage broken into, and all the police ever do is “file a report.” I now do not feel safe in my own home. What if someone decides to break into our home? Would the police care? In my opinion, probably very little. I know this sounds cynical of me, but I feel completely helpless to protect myself, my dogs, or my home. What good is owning anything if anyone can just take it with no consequences to their actions?
I was also told recently that sometimes, criminals will wait 30 days for you to collect on insurance and then return to the scene of the crime to take whatever new items you’ve replaced the old with. How do we stop this from happening? We can’t. We’re sitting ducks. We can board up the window, lock the cars, leave the lights on. But as the officer who came out said, it was obvious whoever did this knew what he/she was doing. They disabled all the lights in our garage, and made as little noise as possible.
Some people have suggested purchasing a security system, but they can be disabled if someone wants in bad enough. They are also very pricey, and with our deductible, we’re going to be out at least $400 plus the cost of replacing the window and our tools that were taken.
So to this I say, kudos to the criminals who broke into our garage, slashed my tires, egged the cars, and dumped everything from pool covers to dead cats in my trash can. You have obviously picked a fantastic career. You can do as you please, and no action will be taken to help the people that you violate. My sense of self preservation has been broken, and I am constantly scared to go home, but you… you will get away with nothing more than a scratch from the window you broke.
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