PORT ANGELES — Joe Cammack and his neighbors in the Mount Pleasant-Monroe Road area are getting fed up.
They said there has been a spike in burglaries in their quiet, rural locale southeast of Port Angeles.
As recently as Monday, Cammack’s house-sitter spotted a car with its door open and returned a half-hour later to find Clallam County sheriff’s deputies and Border Patrol agents with flashlights chasing down a suspect near Roundtree and Monroe roads, he said.
Cammack said five or six residential burglaries have taken place recently.
“The frustrating part is nothing really happens to these guys,” said Cammack, who owns Jim’s Pharmacy in Port Angeles.
“They catch them, and they get bailed out of jail 48 hours later.”
As a result, criminals are “right back to their same old games again within a week,” Cammack said.
“We need to find something short of killing them to deter their behavior,” he said.
Clallam County Sheriff Bill Benedict shares Cammack’s frustration.
He said property crime does not rise to the same level as violent crime in the legal system, making it easier for burglars to bail out of jail.
“If it were up to me, burglary would be an extremely high crime,” Benedict said.
Benedict could not provide statistics that show an increase in burglaries east of Port Angeles but said that a crime analysis that breaks down burglaries by specific category is in the works.
Anecdotally, Benedict noted that property crime has increased gradually countywide over the past year.
“There is an uptick in property crime, particularly burglaries, in the Mount Pleasant Road-Monroe Road area,” Benedict said.
“There’s an uptick everywhere in the county.”
Others in the Mount Pleasant Road-Monroe Road area also spoke about numerous break-ins but did not want to be quoted by name for fear of reprisal.
“It’s a revolving door,” said a man living off Monroe Road, referring to his impression that those arrested are quickly released.
He has purchased a gun because of having been burglarized and his fear that it will happen again.
“I have a shotgun waiting for them,” he said. “They’ve terrorized us now for, what, a month?
“Everyone says they are in the woods watching you, studying your movements,” he added.
A woman, who also did not want to be identified, talked of neighbors receiving threatening text messages and phone calls.
“We’re not feeling very protected up here,” she said, adding that burglaries had continued throughout the summer.
“The neighborhood is banding together, and we’re watching out for each other,” she said.
“I’m afraid somebody is going to get hurt.”
In the coming weeks, the Sheriff’s Office will take a “hard look at taking some kind of coordinated approach to the rise in property crime,” Benedict said.
Benedict attended a recent meeting about crime in the east Port Angeles area.
He said the gradual rise in property crime is causing “quite a bit of irritation” in the community.
“We’re going to try to do something,” he said.
Benedict said there is no clear pattern to the crimes.
Some of it happens during the day; sometimes it happens at night.
No specific items are being targeted.
“It would be pure speculation on my part to identify any similarities,” he said.
Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5072, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
Managing Editor/News Leah Leach contributed to this report.
