Police say ‘Lock It or Lose It’
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (WISH) — The Bloomington Police Department has started a campaign called “Lock It or Lose It.” The police department said it’s aimed at reminding residents to lock the doors on their vehicle and home.
According to the police department, theft from vehicle and burglary are the city’s top crimes.
In 2015, BPD investigated 648 theft from vehicle reports and 517 burglary reports. Between January 2016 and May 2016, 208 theft from vehicle reports were filed and 213 burglary reports were filed with the police department.
“About 50 percent of burglaries and theft from vehicles are all unlocked vehicles or unlocked houses,”said Cpt. Steve Kellams. “We’re coming into a part of time now, in the summer, where those numbers tend to go up because people will leave their windows open because the weather is nice. They’ll leave their doors unlocked and then they’ll leave for a short period of time and forget to lock those things up. All of those are opportunities for criminals. So as the weather gets nicer and the temperature started to get warm, we start seeing those issues.”
Senior Officer Rick Crussen has spent has share of time investigating thefts and burglaries. In his nearly 28 years with the Bloomington Police Department, he’s spent six years on the night shift, 3 1/2 years working for the narcotics unit, 15 years in the department’s detective’s division, and now he’s back on patrol.
“A lot of our thefts from vehicles don’t come from parking lots of malls or shopping centers,” said Crussen. “They’re between 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. and a lot of them are in the homeowner’s driveway, especially if the vehicle’s parked near the street.”
Crussen said East Cathcart Street and Maxwell Lane are a couple of the areas hit hardest by thieves. The officer also brought 24-Hour News 8’s camera to a parking lot that’s tucked away near the city’s YMCA.
In the first one minute of Sr. Officer Crussen checking vehicles for valuables left in plain view, he found a gym bag in one car, a backpack in another and a purse sitting in the front seat of a third vehicle. All of the doors were locked in each of the cars, but Officer Crussen said that wouldn’t stop a thief from striking.
Crussen said thieves are usually looking for cash of any amount and if they see valuables inside, they’ll think there’s money inside as well.
“Someone will come up and look. If it looks like there’s anything that can hold change or hold money in the car they’ll break the car window out, even for 40 or 50 cents,” Crussen said. “Usually, if I take a report and someone’s missing a purse, me and the person who owns the vehicle will search within usually two houses of where the vehicle is and we’ll recover all of the items that weren’t cash or change.”
Crussen said thieves tend to ditch items like purses and computers because they don’t want to get caught with them. However, if the suspect is caught with cash it’s hard to prove where that money came from.
“The best thing possible is to have nothing in your vehicle. Leave nothing overnight, even if it’s in your driveway,” Crussen said.
Bloomington police have these tips for keeping your property and neighborhood safe:
- Lock your doors. By locking the doors to your residences and vehicles you will deter thefts and keep criminals from returning time and again for “easy pickings”
- Close your blinds and curtains. When a criminal cannot see inside the residence they don’t know if the crime is worth the risk.
- Put your lights on timers. Timers that turn lights on and off can give the illusion that someone is home and makes the residence a much less likely target.
- Stop your mail. Have the postal service hold your mail while you are on vacation. A pile of mail on the front porch or in the mailbox can tell a criminal that no one is home.
- Outside lights on motion sensors or dusk-to-dawn sensors. Lighting up the outside of your residence will make it harder for criminals to access your home without someone else seeing.