Crime Watch

7/21/07

There have been 2 armed robberies of recently at the Dovefield Condominiums on the Hwy 61 end of Bees Ferry. The suspect is described as a black male, approximately 5'5", 125 lbs, and wearing a black 'hoodie' sweat shirt. Please be aware of anyone that appears to be loitering for no apparent reason, or cars / bicyclists that appear to be 'casing' houses and notify the police.

7/20/07

This email is intended to alert you to an incident that took place last night at the corner of Bent Hickory and Auburn Hill in Mt. Royal, just one block from Hamilton Grove. A car parked on the street at the residence of Vicki Haskins had two tires slashed and vandalism to the body of the car as well. We think it happened around 11:30 PM. Vicki called the police this morning. I will check on the outcome next week and update you at that time. This is why it is important that we know our neighbors and watch out for one another. When driving into the neighborhood after dark be alert to what you might see as you are driving through the neighborhood. This is the first such incident I am aware of but we NEED TO BE ALERT.

7/17/07

Message: Just wanted to let our neighbors know that our house was attempted to be broken into. This was in May around the same time as the vandalism...we live one street over from the pool. Thankfully, we had the free alarm system installed and the alarm scared them off. We had marks on our door where they stuck something through the door to pry it open. We are thankful for the free alarm system.

Prior to the HOA locking the pool down the picnic table and pool area was vandalized.

Recently the following happened:

On May 18th 2007

It Friday evening at 7:55. I was just asked to check out two teenage boys who had just gotten out of a car at the pool and the car had driven away. I ran down to the pool and spoke with them. There was a can of beer on the picnic table that was cold and 1/2 gone. The boys were sitting inside the fence of the pool. I spoke with them and one said he was a resident the other was his friend. They were waiting for a friend to pick them up. I told them we had had some vandalism at the pool and therefore all the neighbors were keeping watch. A car driven by a girl with another female passenger came into the pool parking lot with tires squeeling. The resident told me he lived on AGB and his last name is xxxx, I am not sure of the spelling. I spoke with the girl driving the car and told her we would be watching for her next trip through the neighborhood. Her license #2338DA. By this time there were 4 adult re sidents who had gathered because of her speeding down AGB. This all occurred at about 7:45pm. All of the kids were polite and did not appear to plan staying at the pool once their ride came. I do not have any phone numbers to call so here is the info...do with what you will....I will again stress that the kids were polite......but why were they meeting at the pool?

If you need any further info let me know


We contacted a fellow Hamilton Grove neighbor who is in law enforcement and here is his response:

I followed up on the information in the email. the vehicle belongs to a house in Sienna. I spoke with the girl's father at that address. he was very receptive. She named the two boys she was with. According to her father she was not supposed to associating with one of the boys. One of them is a FORMER resident of Hamilton Grove. the other does not live here. I also advised her father about her driving. i warned her against both her driving and dropping people off when she did not know if they belonged where she was leaving them. As for why they would meet at our pool, simple, they don't want their parents to know who they are with or they are not where they are supposed to be. Also, its great that they were polite & respectful (and she still was with me today), however they at the very least are drinking under age (this was confirmed by the female).

Please make the resident who gave you the initial call aware of the outcome of their efforts. I doubt that these particular teenagers will visit our pool again. This is truely how a community watch works. If a summary of this incident could be published in our next newsletter / email it might encourage people to call in incidents like this. Remember, if it looks suspicious it is.

This incident was handled wonderfully. there's only one suggestion I would make for the future. Go ahead and call the police. The police can complete a field identification on them (basically making sure the ppl are who they say they are) and also place them on trespass notice for whatever the location they are at (so that they can be arrested and/or cited if caught there in the future). Also, you can tell a person they have to stay until the police arrive, you just can't do anything physical to make them stay there. This works really well for kids / teens. Many times they will stick around, sometimes they won't care and will leave.

At the very least, get the license plate as was done in this incident.

Feel free to forward any future incidents like this to me and I'll follow up as best I can.