Several Events

My sincere apologies for posting delays.  Issues arose that prevent posting for a while.

Daylight Burglary, June 12th on Lapaz Drive

Between 9:00 and 9:30 AM, a burglar jumped a fence, cut a screen to open a window and entered a house.  A lookout posing as a vacuum cleaner demonstrator walked from house to house on the block.

The lookout was described as a cleanly dressed black male adult wearing a white shirt, dark jeans, and white shoes. (resembling Kobe Bryant according to the witness).  The lookout walked from house to house, skipping houses that had cars in the driveway (behavior consistent with casing houses).  A resident noted that the lookout appeared to be texting, probably keeping the burglar updated.  The lookout went to the victim's door and was admitted by the burglar.  The resident witnessing this called 911, and the Sheriff's department responded with a few minutes.  

During this time, a plumb-colored sports car had parked in front of the house.  The resident didn't see anyone enter the vehicle, but heard it drive away prior to the sheriff's arrival.  The Sheriff's department set up a perimeter and sent in their k-9 unit.  The burglars had left with a TV.  They had also staged a pillowcase with jewelry in it under the couch.  Crime scene investigators came to take fingerprints.

Chuck's Advice:

While you don't need to answer the door for solicitors, be sure to call through the door that you're not interested.  Most burglars aren't looking for confrontation and will move on.  Exchange best contact numbers with neighbors you trust so you can keep each other updated if something does happen.  Lock your gates and use double cylinder deadbolts on your front doors.  Other helpful devices include motion sensing lights, driveway alarms and other products designed to protect your home, but nothing can replace an alert neighbor willing to call the police to report suspicious activity or a crime in progress.

Solicitors, 3800 Block of Duran Circle, June 9th

From a resident:  A woman in a red shirt with dirty brown hair in a pony tail knocked on our door to ask if our car was for sale.   We do we have a for sale sign on a car and she looked a bit rough,  so we were suspicious.  She went back to her champagne colored car, perhaps a Toyota, driven by a man with a young child in the back and drove off, turning right onto La Paz from Duran Circle.  I stood at the window with my camera phone trying to get a photo but I didn't.  They did see me doing that though.

Recycling Thieves, 2500 Block of Cambon, June 9th

The below photo is a picture of a van with two African Americans, female driver and the male that goes through your garbage and recycle.  I have seen them around this area for over a year now on recycle day.  It is a dark green van, when he is confronted he runs and jumps in the sliding door.  They drive around with the door open so he can get in and out quickly.

 If that picture looks familiar, it should.  We have a better photograph of the van from in this post (linked here). 

Remember to call the Sheriff's Department non-emergency number.  Stealing recycling is a crime.  From the other post, the van's license plate appears to be 5WVP982.  Give it to the Sheriff's department.  Even if these people have fled, they can be caught.  A pullover would probably keep them out of our neighborhood in the future.

Why do we care?  There's a reminder of why it's important to report this in this previous post.

Neighboring Area

Drive By Shooting

From a friend who lives on Whitney near Becerra -

Tuesday 5/27 around 2:20 p.m.

While returning home this afternoon from a quick bike trip for some shed parts at Emigh Hardware, I nearly became involved in a drive by shooting at the corner of Watt and Whitney.

A BMW SUV was being chased South bound on Watt Ave. by at least two men in a white sedan. The BMW pulled into the corner 7-11, the sedan followed and fired off 4 shots into the driver's side door, window, and rear tire, then sped off Eastbound on Whitney Avenue, right past my place!

Gas theft, Messy Recycling Scavengers

From a neighboring group:
Tuesday, August 13th, all the gas was stolen from my car on North Edge Drive and I was left with so little gas that I could not have driven to a station.  My husband noticed the door to the gas tank was open on my car this morning and had me check, and sure enough all the gas was gone.  My husband has a new car and said that his gas was fine, but he thinks his car was tampered with electronically, maybe to try and steal it, because the calendar was wrong this morning and some other electronic things were acting oddly. 

Messy Recycling Scavengers:
Recycling scavengers were out last night and they caused a problem on my property.  They'd left both cans open, and piled recycling materials high up in my open garbage can, such that the garbage truck probably wouldn't have taken my garbage had they come by before I fixed it.  I had nothing worth their time in my recycling--just cardboard, really.  

They left a few small items strewn about my lawn for me to clean up.  We sleep at the back of the house, so we didn't hear them to call the police, but please, please if you notice scavengers call the sheriff's nonemergency dispatch number and get an officer out.  


A bit of littering is just an inconvenience, but the activity of these people can hide identity theft activities, casing of houses, and even if they have no worse motives, they'll lower your property values just by scavenging.

Aggressive Scavenging and other Incidents

I'm sorry for the delay in posting.  It's been quite a busy couple of weeks for me.  We have a few reports to add.  Please note that we have people casing our homes.  Please call the Sheriff's department for these suspicious activities.

Today there was a very aggressive recycling scavenger on Watson Street.  He was in a navy blue (almost black appearing) early 90's model Ford Extended cab license plate number TN46468.  It has some front end damage.  I had to go outside to get his plate.  When I did, he started screaming at me and called me "chickensh*t" for taking his plate number.  He wouldn't let me say anything to explain neighborhood watch always takes license plate numbers for suspicious activity in our neighborhood.  He drove off when I said the sheriff's department had been called.  The driver/scavenger is a man in his 50's, gray hair and beard.  This morning he had a red t-shirt on.  He was aggressive enough I'm worried he'll seek to retaliate, so if you see him in our neighborhood, especially near Eastern and El Camino Avenues, please call the sheriff's department right away.

He tried to reassure me he wasn't an identity thief, but honestly the fact he knew I might be conscious of that indicates that might have been his purpose.

From a neighbor on Butano (e-mail virus)

I'm sending this out because I know a few people who have gotten emails with the friend/sender's name in the subject heading.  I received 2 myself - One ironically - I had been expecting an email with that person's name in the subject heading. Unfortunately, when I opened the email - I quickly saw it was not actually sent from my friend.  

There's a virus going around. If you have your email accounts like me (online) and you receive one of these pesky virus/emails - all you have to do is change your password on your account. This will prevent any virus from using your password to send out more viruses.  When I originally opened the email/virus - I suddenly lost access to all of my contacts. I contacted Microsoft and luckily, it was a problem on their end and not a result of any virus.

The only reason that I'm sending this out to everyone now, is because we all need to share this info with others who may not know about it.  I am diligent as is one of my senders who had the virus - about never opening anything without a subject heading or anything unusual, etc.  He has no idea how he got the virus, as he did not open/receive any odd emails.  He did some online tracking and his account was accessed from Hungary, when the emails were sent. So, go figure. 

So, again - tell your friends, etc. that if they get any emails with the sender's name in it, to beware!
Also, one thing I've noticed is that my G-mail account never has any viruses sent to it - but live.com/hotmail one does every couple of months. So, I may be letting this one go - and just keeping my Gmail.  We'll see.

Have a great day!BEWARE OF ANY EMAILS THAT ARE ADDRESSED TO YOU AND HAVE NO SUBJECT OR THE SENDER'S NAME AS THE SUBJECT LINE.   The subject line should be something relatively directed to something that you would connect to with the sender.

 

June 17th, Suspicious Activity    incident on Duarte ct  

This morning at 6am I happened to glance out my front window and saw someone looking in the window of my car. I ran out there and said, "What the @&!? are you doing?"  It was a young woman, white, late teens/early twenties. She just smiled and got into a car driven by a male with two other females in the back. The vehicle was dark blue or gray, possibly an Altima, a small 4 door sedan. I was more concerned about getting the license plate #6TTF628. I made a report to the sheriff immediately after.

 

June 16th Suspicious Activity 2800 block of marilona

Someone was casing our home as we left. We circled back confronted took pic of plates called sheriff.

picture attached.  License is disabled plate, 7597Z DP.

 

Jun 11 Suspicious Activity  (approx 2pm) 2800 block of ione

A black male adult with a shopping cart was going through waste cans that were up at the houses.  In one instance, the cans were next to an "unattended" open garage.  The sheriff dept was called, and responded to the area, within 10 minutes.  The individual was not found on ione or barbarell, and the deputy drove into the central neighborhood. (it is unknown as to the outcome).  The responding deputy did state that "allowing people to come onto your property gives them the excuse to look into your vehicles or other places," (this is a summation of the conversation).

Jun 10, Recycling Theft 5pm-ish  3700 block of duran circle

A resident had staged a small bag of  recyclables for a friend on their front porch.  A male in his late teens riding a bicycle by the house apparently noticed the bag and stopped and approached the house.  The resident saw the action and thought someone was coming to the door, and awaited the knock/doorbell, which didn't come.  Upon checking the door, the bag was gone and the person had left.

VACANT HOMES, USED AS RESIDENCES!

May 30, a garage sale was set up at 4100 Marconi, (at the intersection of Norris, at the traffic light).   This house has been vacant and borded up, tied up in a trust for at least 4 years.  A nearby neighbor said that the garage door was open when they passed by.  The sheriff dept was called, ( the disposition of the call is unknown).

At approx 1pm, on Saturday, the 2 subjects set up their garage sale and the sheriff dept responded, and arrested or detained two individuals.

According to  nearby neighbors this house, has been stripped of it's recyclable materials, and has no services, (water, electricity, gas)...but is a continuing problem.

Mail Theft, Eggings, Recycling

I'm sorry for the delay on this post.  We were victims of identity theft, so please call in those garbage/recycling scavengers.  They may be stealing your information.

Mail theft (Carrisa near Loreto wy) March 12

 

Mail was stolen off of a porch mailbox on Tuesday, March 12 around 10:00 AM in the morning.  According to the neighbor's landscapers, they noticed a suspicious black man near the property and tried to get his attention.  When the black man realized he was being watched he ran off toward Kings Way with something under his arm.  With the information the man received from the stolen mail, he attempted to open two new credit cards, and tried to cash the check after he changed the information written on it.  The matter is currently being investigated by local law enforcement agencies.

 

Just a note:  If you have a porch mailbox, a cheap, and good way to detect if someone is on your porch is to buy, a "driveway detector."  It is motion activated, and the receiver chimes.  It is wireless, and around $14.00 at harbor tool and freight.  (If you have cats or other animals that frequent your porch, this may not work, as it will always be chiming.)

 

Eggings  (Kings Way) Monday Mar 25

 

A car on the 3800 block and several houses on the 3900 block of Kings Way were egged Monday night or Tuesday morning.  It was Spring break, so kids are were of school and eggs were on sale due to Easter... "cheap fun", for the vandals, not so much for the victims.

 

Recycling Scavengers

 

Scavengers continue to come out in force to get what they can from your cans, (both garbage, and recyclable).  Attached is a picture of an individual and the vehicle that he was linked with. this individual (last recycle day), spent an inordinate amount of time going through a garbage can when the recycle can was nearby.  This would seem suspicious, and may be attempting to retrieve information on the resident identity. (MAKE SURE THAT YOU SHRED, ALL PERSONAL INFO, BEFORE DISCARDING IT).  Call the sheriff non-emergency number, if you see someone going through your cans, and record any info.

On March 29, a black man on a bicycle was going through recycling.  I made a report to the Sheriff's department.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this e-mail, my wife and I were victims of identity theft.  Please report scavengers.  It is the perfect cover for identity theft.  It doesn't matter if the scavengers really only after recycling.  Remember, that's revenue the county needs and will eventually raise your taxes to get, so they're stealing from all of us.  Further, it will lower your property values by making our neighborhoods more seedy.  Don't confront them directly, but please do call the Sheriff's department.  They don't respond every time, but they do respond.

Recycling Scavengers going too far

From Chuck:

A warning!  This morning my wife went out to deposit some last minute garbage in the can before the pick up and returned asking if the garbage truck had come yet.  It hadn't.

(I keep the recycle can close to the house until morning on recycling pick up days because of scavengers).  In any case it seems that someone removed our trash bag as it was convenient to grab the bag and go.

(I was awoken twice and noticed a minivan come into the court I live on at approximately 3:15 AM and a different one at 4:25 AM)  In the future I will be either cutting the bottom of the bag as it goes into the can, or dumping the contents.

Editor's note:  This is really bad because recycling and garbage scavenging, besides bringing down the resale value of your home, serves as an easy cover for identity theft.  Shred any identity-bearing documents.

Please watch for scavengers tomorrow and call the Sheriff's Department

Chuck sent a timely reminder:

As tomorrow is garbage pickup, "recyclers" will be out to see what you got for Christmas.  Be sure to shred any boxes that held expensive gifts. 

Call 874-5115 (Sheriff's Department nonemergency number), if you see people going through your cans.

Why  not let people scavenge?

http://delpasomanor.blogspot.com/2009/06/recycling-scavengers.html Under the special note.  Allowing this activity is a quick way to decrease your safety and property values.

Recycling Scavengers again

This morning as I left for work I opened my garbage can to find bags torn open and sorted through. On Watson Street I saw two men loading recycling into a red station wagon, then going on to loot more cans. I drove up to them and let them know we didn't permit that, they weren't allowed to loot here or tear open people's garbage bags and that they needed to leave, as police would be called.

As I got my phone ready to call, I saw two Sheriff's vehicles. I pulled up to the first and let the Deputy know what was going on. She asked if they were two women. I explained they were two men on Watson Street. She said she was investigating a call about two women doing the same thing, and then she proceeded down to where I reported the men. I don't know if they stayed in the area long enough to be caught, but the Sheriff's vehicle was on Watson according to reports from neighbors very shortly after I spoke with the Deputy.

I suspect we'll see an e-mail later in the day about the incident.

Some of our neighbors have expressed some discomfort reporting these people. Please remember, we've had more severe incidents with just such looters. They affect your property values and looting of recyclables will reduce county revenue from the program and eventualy result in higher rates for all of us. Also, if anyone watching sees a quick police response as they did today, people are less likely to feel safe committing more severe crimes in our neighborhood. Thanks to whomever called the Sheriff's Department first, and thank you for your vigilance.

Recycling Scavengers

This post comes a bit out of order--the incidents took place on Friday, June 12th. However, there's good background information for residents.

From Andrew:

Good morning, DPM neighbors. This one's not a huge one, but to keep everyone updated, there were very unkempt recycling rummagers in the neighborhood this morning. The Sheriff's Department was responding last I was updated (I'm presently at work). The rummagers were on Watson Street when my wife called the police, but one other resident closer to DPM school came out to report when deputies arrived on scene, having also called the police.I'm assuming the sheriffs will handle this before my wife returns to the area where she saw them, but if I have any updates on the resolution of the matter, I will send one more e-mail. Thanks, everyone!

From Brenda:

I believe I was the person who also reported these homelesslooking scavangers/looters this morning. I took pictures of them leaving my street and then called Sheriff and then followed this man and woman both on bicycles. I spoke to the sheriff on street and then observed him talking to the looters on El Camino at Avalon. He just said a few words to them..nothing else. So,I wanted to see what they would then do-so I again followed them. The bicycle the man was riding was pulling a large square cart that was loaded with black garbage bags..it was over flowing and he had a full sack on the front of the bike.The woman a small petite dirty blonde also had full bags on her bike. I followed them and they ended up at a recycling station in the parking lot at Watt and Arden--beside the Dollar Store.

From Trish:

I have called so many times about the guy in the maroon Taurus. The sheriff never gets here when he is still around.

A Special Note:

Normally this blog, much like the alert list, will not include opinion. Comments to help make things more secure, additions to reports, etc. are very welcome.

On this issue there was some discussion of why we're concerned with the scavengers at all. For those not familiar with the situation, I think it's important to understand why this matters.

1. Undesirables in the neighborhood--If you're at all concerned about your property value and the safety of your family and neighbors, it's important to remember that garbage scroungers are often people on the fringes of society. I'm more concerned about the safety of my 5 year old and my wife than the 5 cents they'll make off the plastic bottle in my recycling. I give as generously as I am able to private charity to help them those in need. While I applaud the initiative of recyclers, they should collect from traditional sources, as has been done for decades (roadside, etc.)

2. Crime--I've hinted at this above. How many people going through your garbage are just trying to survive, and how many are looking to commit identity theft? How many of these people aren't stable, and are willing to commit violence?

3. Your garbage pick up rates--The county, which has been raising garbage and sewer rates, relies on the recycling program for income. Many of the scavengers aren't local. They're taking the revenue that keeps your rates as low as they presently are for personal gain. In short, they're stealing from our community's common pool of resources and removing it from the community.

Another resident also commented, indicating why she's concerned:

From Mary:

I've owned my home in this neighborhood for over 5 years. These supposedly harmless people have tresspassed on my property with their mobility machines often tearing up my landscaping going through my recycle and leaving a huge mess, breaking bottles and leaving the glass everywhere, throwing their cigarette butts all over my property, and leaving whatever garbage they don't want (candy wrappers, etc) anywhere they choose. Guess who has to clean it up?

Three weeks ago I had caught several of them on my property with flashlights, checking out my front porch, etc. even looking in my backyard. I had the police out at 1 am in the morning, not because I take pleasure in doing that, but because having flashlights shine in your windows at 12:30 am is a little scary. When I checked the street they had taken all of the recycle out of everyone's recycle bin and it was all laying everywhere, including bottles that anyone driving can run over and make an even bigger mess. I've found at least two of them checking out the homes during the day to see if someone is home or not so they could steal.

By the way, are you hooked up to the county sheriffs website? We have at least 8 crimes a week within a mile of here, mostly theft. I no longer leave my garage side door open to air out my garage, because I've had them attempt to come in and see what they could take from there as well. Two of them I recognize, because I see them down at Raleys all the time turning in their recycle items that they've "stolen" for money. Usually it's with a cigarette hanging out of their mouths or a bottle of beer or wine in their hands. (interesting how they have money for that)

I worked as a temp for the County for the Dept of Human Assistance for a year. We received over 900 applications a week for benefits from people asking for help. Many were denied for fraudulent reasons, but those that are in need received cash on a daily basis for food, yes that's right, your tax dollars at work, a place to stay, all the free medical they want including drug and alcohol rehabilitation forever or as long as they think they need it, a clothing allowance, and if they need their tattoos,( that they so irresponsibly had done to themselves), removed so they can possibly get a job, oh yes, we pay for that too.I'll be darned if I'm going to let them rummage through my recycle bin, create the mess that they create, tresspass illegally on my property, and collect the recycle for which I'm already paying for through my tax dollars. Not to mention that from a real estate point of view, that is the WORST thing you can let happen in a neighborhood. Try to sell your home when the buyer checks out the crime stats and finds out how many indigents we have running through the neighborhood, or talks to the neighbors to find out that we have a chronic problem, which by the way, we do. Oh by the way, one of them is on the sex offenders list as well, he lives on Marconi, and I've seen him a couple of times. Do you want him in the neighborhood going through your recycled items while children are walking to school?Frankly, I'm of the mind set that we need to clean up this neighborhood, not let it go to those, not less fortunate than us, but ones that choose not to work like rest of us and prefer to just take whatever society will allow them to have.Anyone needing food, clothing, shelter, surgery, and I mean anyone, citizen or not, is eligible to get whatever they need from the DHA. All they have to do is apply. Anyway, that's my feeling on it and I intend to remain aggressive until we clean up this neighborhood.