Rash of daytime burglaries in Lodi

By Daniel Thigpen | Published: November 6, 2009 | Comments closed

September and October were bad months for daytime burglaries in Lodi, police have reported. Then again, it appears there was little “breaking-in” to be done: Many culprits got in simply through unlocked doors, windows and gates, police reported.

Want to know more? Here’s some info from police Lt. Chris Piombo, e-mailed to reporters earlier today:

Daytime burglaries (7 a.m. until 5 p.m. People leave for work and come home to find someone broke into their house.)
 
August           6
September    30
October        32
 
There 12 in a five day stretch between September 13-18. There were five on September 14 alone.
 
Arrests:         9   
Officers arrested a “crew”, four males, on October 8. They were responsible for several burgs across town. They also arrested three other burglary suspects this past week. They are implicated in several south area burglaries.
 
Items taken:    Lots of large flat screen t.v.’s, jewelry, laptops, computers, cameras, cash
 
Methods of entry:    Pried open side garage doors or rear windows (bathroom, kitchen, bedroom) mostly, kicked in front doors,smashed small windows and reached in to unlock door.
 
In 30 of the 68 cases, the suspects gained entry through unlocked doors or windows. They are using doors and windows that are not visible from the street. They enter the backyards through unlocked side gates. In the cases where there were witnesses, they noticed the suspects ringing the victims’ doorbells or knocking several times.
 
The suspects were scared off in the one case where the victim had an alarm. In several of the cases, the suspects used the victims tools to pry open the door. In one case they used the tools to pry open a safe they found inside the house. Obviously they are spending quite a bit of time in the home. In another case, the suspect broke in through the slider, called two of his friends, they drove over to the house, they loaded up the car, and drove off. They were probably in there at least a half hour or more.
 
Victims have interrupted the suspects during the burglaries on five occasions. There have been no injuries and the suspects fled in each of those cases.
 
Advice: Quite a few of the items taken were left in plain view inside the home. Laptops, I-pods, jewelry. In two cases firearms were left in plain view, including four rifles. Lock doors and windows    Neighbors need to call if they see someone suspicious in the neighborhood. Or if they see someone carrying a 50″ t.v. down the road, which happened on one occasion.
 
Chief Main’s goal is that the citizens feel safe and secure in our city. We also realize how violated people feel when someone has entered their home and taken something. Keeping those things in mind, we are putting additional officers into the affected areas on directed patrol along with some other things. At the same time patrol and detectives are developing a long term strategy to resolve this issue.

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