MORNINGSIDE CRIME
Over the past month our precinct had the following crime activities:
- 5 X Burglary/break and enter (2 x Richmond Rd, 1 x Elwell St, 1 x Ramsay La, 1 x Bonar St. Items Targeted – Cash, tvs, cameras, IPods, jewelery, video game equipment, handbags. VEHICLE KEYS
- 1 X Vehicle steal (Elwell St,) Vehicle stolen as result of break and enter – keys located by offenders and stolen. Vehicle has been located by Police and investigation is continuing.
- 2 X Steal from person (Oxford St Bulimba and Riding Rd, Balmoral). Handbags or purses stolen from women whilst the bags were on the ground under tables while victim was eating or taken from hands of victim by approaching from behind and snatching bags from hands.
Important Advice from our local Police
I felt it was worthy to note these occurrences even though they
did not occur in Morningside 3 area due to offenders committing similar types
of offences throughout Brisbane and Logan areas.
Offenders have been identified located and charged.
I also wanted to include the below
advice in regard to securing homes, vehicle and property to help increase
knowledge of how to prevent offences. Many offences can be easily
prevented and property returned after being located if the following
information is kept in mind. .
HOMES
Access was gained to 4 out of the 5 premises in the break and
enters via unlocked doors and garages allowing the offenders to simply walk
into homes unnoticed and unchallenged, many houses which are broken into at
night are entered in this fashion and often while residents are sleeping and
unaware of any wrong doing until they wake in the morning to find their
belongings missing, this style of break and enter is referred to as a “sneak
break”. Residents need to be mindful that thieves will attempt to break
into houses that draw the least attention and therefore many do not resort to
breaking windows or doors if they can locate houses which are left unsecured as
this makes for a silent entry and exit. Residents need to be reminded to
lock doors and windows to prevent these types of offences.
Offenders are not present inside a
person’s house for more than a few minutes and will normally seek out items
that are easy to grab without the need to search for long periods of time (more
time may be spent inside a house if it is unoccupied) therefore items such as
car keys, laptops, jewelry and electronics should be kept in places which are
out of sight. Offenders know common places where people store items (they
know to find car keys on bench tops and handbags on kitchen tables, they know
that jewelry goes in the bedside table or dresser). Therefore if you’re at
home, keep car keys somewhere unusual and if you go to bed keep them in the
room you’re sleeping in along with your handbag/wallet and electronics.
If you’re going on holidays, don’t leave your jewelry in the same place
it always is as offenders know where to find it.
The remaining break and enter happened to a locked and secured home
which was secured with “crim safe” mesh doors. One of these doors was
removed from the frame to gain access and therefore significant damage and in
turn noise would have been produced. This kind of occurrence is more
likely to occur when residents are not home and therefore no-one inside the
house is drawn to the loud noise of breaking windows or doors. Residents
need to be reminded to look out for their neighbors and know when they are on
holidays and when they are expected to return, pay attention to suspicious
persons or vehicles in the street and write down registrations along with times
and dates and descriptions of occupants if possible.
VEHICLES
The stolen Vehicle was stolen as a
result of a break and enter (again via unlocked or unsecured doors) and keys
left out in a conspicuous place in the house.
Many modern and late model vehicles
are very difficult to steal with today’s technologies and vehicle security
however when offenders do break into homes via the above mentioned methods one
of the sought after items are keys belonging to vehicles. Vehicles
are very easy to start when you have the keys…….. Residents
should be reminded to keep their vehicle keys in a NON conspicuous place in the
house and not left on kitchen benches or key hooks, during many break and enter
offences.
More often my reports about
offences involving vehicles are opportunistic offences whereby a vehicle has
been entered due to it being unlocked, Offenders in these cases are normally
just wandering the streets and attempting to open car doors hoping one will be
left open and then GPS units, cameras, cash etc are up for grabs. Very
rarely do we find that vehicle are broken into by smashing windows.
PROPERTY
Residents need to be reminded to
write down serial numbers of electronics or valuables (and IMEI numbers of
phones) and take photos of jewelry. If stolen or lost, items ie “black
iphone” - simply go into the Police system as a black iphone along with the
other 4000 black iphones which are lost or stolen in our system with no further
details (as the owner cannot normally provide further details). Similarly
descriptions such as “gold ring”, “sony digital camera”, or “orange BMX
bicycle” are not sufficient if victims reasonably wish to have their items
returned to them. When these items are eventually found (and many ARE) we
have no way of determining who each located item belongs to often due to poor
descriptions and identifying features being reported to Police.
Police often locate stolen items
during search warrants and when locating suspected offenders and Police
regularly check the serial numbers during these searches, if the items and
their serial numbers are reported as stolen it becomes very easy to return
these items to their owners as well as prosecute the offenders.
