PORT TOWNSEND — It’s time to start locking the doors, police say.
Port Townsend police will conduct a public meeting tonight to discuss a rash of 39 residential burglaries since Dec. 1 which are estimated to have netted more than $49,000 in losses.
Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. for the meeting — which is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. — in the Port Townsend police headquarters in the Mountain View Commons at 1919 Blaine St.
Sgt. Ed Green said that police will stay “as long as people want to talk to us.”
Green said that most of the burglaries occurred when the residences were unlocked.
“In many cases, the only response is to lock your house when you leave,” Green said.
“Our community is changing, so locking up is now necessary.”
Know your neighbors
Green said that police also will suggest that homeowners get to know the habits of their neighbors, and adopt the “neighborhood watch” model in use in communities of all sizes across the country.
“A lot of people don’t know the people who are living next to them,” Green said.
“We suggest they acquaint themselves with their neighbors’ habits and report anything unusual to the police.”
Break-ins have occurred throughout Port Townsend. Most recently, they have been concentrated in the North Beach area.
Paula Hill, a 49-year-old single mother, has lived in that neighborhood for three years and is not happy about the need to keep her doors locked.
Trust lost
“I now lock my doors,” she said Thursday.
“But there is a sense that trust has been lost.”
A thief walked into her unlocked house March 20 and stole about $1,800 in cash, much of it in large bills, while leaving behind such valuables as an iPod and a computer.
This incident changed Hill’s world from top to bottom, she said.
She removed the hide-a-key, which was available for friends, from the front of the house.
She groused to the clerk at the local feed store while buying dog food about how her “three useless dogs” didn’t discourage the break-in.
“This thief is really smart,” she said.
“He knew where to look, when to come in, and didn’t take anything that would be hard to get rid of. He was able to get past the dogs.”
Or maybe he wasn’t all that smart. Hill said the thief took a case full of change and threw the case away near the house.
The case is now being tested for fingerprints, along with several other objects.
Green said there is no time frame for getting fingerprint results from the State Patrol, since tests related to crimes against people have priority over those involving property crimes,
Hill has her suspicions about the perpetrator, and has supplied specific information to the police, she said.
Green said that all leads are being investigated, but “we need more than someone’s gut feeling” before someone is brought in for questioning.
Green said there was no clear connection between the break-in and a series of vandalism incidents against businesses in which rocks were thrown through windows.
North Olympic Crime Stoppers, in a plea for information about both the burglaries and the acts of malicious mischief against businesses, said that the two types of crimes did appear to be connected.
Crime Stoppers estimated the loss in the burglaries as more than $49,000, and the damage to businesses as more than $15,000.
The group pays up to $1,000 for a cash reward for information leading to an arrest and the filing of felony charges.
Information can be reported anonymously to Crime Stoppers at a 24-hour-tips line, 1-800-222-8477.
To contact the Port Townsend Police Department, phone 360-385-2322.
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Jefferson County reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
