Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Burglaries get no love from detectives?

I wrote a little script that downloads the current crime "blotter" (such as it is) and parses it. In looking for data on a few neighboring streets. Here's an example for Summit Dr:

04/22/2009 05:00 PM CRIM MISC 50-500 400 BLK of SUMMIT DR
03/31/2009 03:30 PM BURG UNLAW-RESD 500 BLK of SUMMIT DR
12/09/2008 02:00 PM CRIM MISC 50-500 500 BLK of SUMMIT DR
10/28/2008 04:30 AM BURG FORCE-RESD/THEFT-FROM MV 400 BLK of SUMMIT DR
10/28/2008 04:30 AM BURG FORCE-RESD/THEFT-FROM MV 400 BLK of SUMMIT DR
10/27/2008 05:00 PM THEFT-MV PARTS 400 BLK of SUMMIT DR
06/09/2008 04:00 PM CRIM MISC 50-500 500 BLK of SUMMIT DR
04/24/2008 10:30 PM THEFT-ALL OTHER/VEH AUTO-THEFT 500 BLK of SUMMIT DR
02/05/2008 06:00 PM BURG FORCE-RESD 400 BLK of SUMMIT DR
01/13/2008 12:01 AM CRIM MISC 50-500 PARK LN // SUMMIT DR

What's odd is that all the burglary/mischief calls over the last year are marked "inactive", as in "no followup". That's odd. What are the chances that ALL of them are effectively in the trash pile? So I started looking for cases that were active or pending. Based on my reading, it appears someone has to be shot, assaulted, or have their car stolen to get their case seen by detectives. I suspect the car theft one is due to agitation by insurance companies rather than any particular concern for the property of citizens.

I would much rather have residential burglaries followed up on rather than car theft. My car can easily be replaced; my sense of security in my home cannot.

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