Police often see an increase in residential burglaries over a period of several weeks leading up to Christmas.  A common method for burglars is to arrive in a neighborhood and look normal.  They casually walk up to residences and knock to ensure no one is home.  If, however, someone answers, the burglars simply give a plausible explanation.  With no answer, burglars force entry most often to the side garage door.  The message here is to communicate with your neighbors to get everyone on the same page in immediately reporting vehicles and people arriving who are unfamiliar to the area.   

Other targets favored by burglars are vehicles that clearly have property inside.  Burglars canvass neighborhoods day and night and casually glance into vehicles.  Once property is seen, burglars wait for the right opportunity and then take it.  The message here is to not give burglars such an easy target.  It only takes seconds to break into vehicles.  And, as mentioned above, citizens are encouraged to immediately phone the police when suspicious or unfamiliar people are seen loitering around.

Patrol has experienced some troubling alarm calls recently.  The first involves delayed calls from the alarm companies to the police.  These delays were learned after the calls were cleared and some investigation had been done.  The obvious problem with delayed calls is that the burglars were afforded time to escape.  The message here is to contact your alarm company to ensure they know our dispatch center’s phone number (707-421-7373) and that their protocol is to immediately phone us when alarms activate. 

The second troubling issue involves alarm companies phoning homeowners first.  The homeowners were at work, so they phoned family members to respond and check the homes without notifying the police. The obvious problems here are the delays as described in advisory#1 along with a very dangerous situation created. The police responded in a tactical manner and found people on scene who they initially thought were burglars.  The message here is to let the police do their job and ensure the residence is safe.