Policing Programs Credited For Drop In Burglaries
With more open doors and more teens with free time, summertime is usually peak season for break-ins.
But fewer homes in North Side neighborhoods were broken into during the summer months this year than last year. August continued the trend. The Hillyard neighborhood remained the most burgled part of the city with 30 break-ins for the month. But burglaries in the neighborhood dropped from 36 in August 1994.
Other areas also saw significant reductions from 1994. The Nevada-Lidgerwood neighborhood’s burglaries were cut in half; break-ins in Emerson-Garfield fell by 10 percent.
Jack Pierson, crime analyst for the Spokane Police Department, attributed the decline to the active community policing stations in the neighborhoods.
Volunteers at those stations patrol their neighborhoods, monitoring suspicious cars and calling police when they see a crime in progress.
Pierson said publicity about those efforts is proving to be an effective crime deterrent.
“When (potential burglars) roll into a neighborhood and know someone is writing down their license plate, they leave,” said Pierson. “(Volunteers) see somebody skulking around the neighbor’s yard, and they give us a call.”
Teen takes candy, pulls gun
Police arrested a 17-year-old boy Monday night after a teenager stuffed candy bars into his clothes and then pulled a gun on a customer and clerk at a Spokane Zip-Trip.
The teen was booked into the juvenile detention center on a first-degree robbery charge after the robbery at 1503 E. Illinois about 9:45 p.m.
When a customer who saw the boy stealing candy bars questioned him, the teen pulled a handgun.
The teen threatened the customer and a clerk and at one point dropped the weapon down his pant leg, but picked the gun up from the floor and left.
Police found a 17-year-old who matched the suspect’s description in the area and he was arrested. Authorities also recovered a pistol in the area.
Three youths arrested
Three youths committed the cardinal sin of crime - stupidity - when they tried to hit a police car with a baseball-sized rock.
Washington state trooper Terry Van Weerdhuizen was responding on Aug. 31 to complaints of rocks being thrown at cars near Wandermere Golf Course when a rock whizzed past his car.
He saw three youths on a ridge above the highway running away and drove down an access road to follow them. He pulled over a pickup truck going down the road without lights.
One of the three youths ran from the truck through the woods.
The two others, both 17, were arrested for reckless endangerment. The third youth was identified by the other two and was arrested later.
, DataTimes