From Decatur PD…
On 09/29/13 at approximately 1:32 am, Decatur Police were dispatched to a burglary in progress in the 500 block of Kirk Road. The homeowners reported hearing their burglar alarm activate and then hearing a commotion downstairs. Officers located a cut in the screen door leading to a rear porch, which had previously been latched. A screen had been removed from an unsecured rear window leading from the porch into the living room. A large flat panel television was ripped from it’s mounting bracket and taken from the living room. Other valuable items in plain view in the living room were left untouched. It appeared the suspects left the residence through the same window they entered.
On 09/29/13 at approximately 2:18 am, Decatur Police responded to a burglar alarm in the 100 block of Hilldale Drive. The homeowner told the alarm company someone had attempted to open the front window, but were unsure if they had gained entry. Officers arrived and conducted a check of the residence (inside and out) with negative results. Officers located a window on the front of the house which was open approximately three inches. Officers located two other windows on the residence which were unsecured but unopened. No items were taken and it did not appear the suspect(s) made entry.
On 09/29/13 at approximately 10:15 am, Decatur Police responded to the 200 block of Buchanan Terrace in reference to a burglary. The complainant reported he went to sleep the previous night at approximately 11:00 pm and woke to find the door to the storage closet located in the back of the open carport of the residence open. This door was previously secured with a padlock. It appeared the latch was pried off. Miscellaneous tools were missing from the storage closet. An officer located the missing tools inside of a vehicle parked in the carport. The vehicle had a broken steering column but was previously inoperable and would not have started anyway. There was also a bicycle missing from the front porch of the residence. An additional entering auto was reported at the residence across the street. An unsecured vehicle was entered and a wallet was taken. A bicycle that did not belong to either victim was located in the second victim’s front yard.
When we have to leave a car in the driveway, we remove anything of value and leave the car open with the alarm on. In the event of a break-in, at least we won’t have to get a window replaced.
Most people in Winonna Park have to leave cars in the driveway or on the street. Only the newest of houses have garages.
Was Decatur Bikes also broken into this weekend? Their front window appeared to be smashed.
DPD says Decatur Bikes wasn’t broken into. The damage was caused by a customer trying out a bike.
That made me laugh out loud.
However, I guess that could have involved a serious injury. Hope said customer had a helmet on, preferable with a visor.
Great- here we go again. I think that is the shortest amount of time between “quiet” moments of crime. I hate reading this…
Anyone who would break into a house knowing the owners are home isn’t afraid of confrontation …think about that and those long ticking minutes until the police arrive…what do you do to protect your family in the meantime…plan now… Crime happens and not just to other people! I value the 2nd Amendment.. God Bless America!
“those long ticking minutes until the police arrive”
I know it seems like a long time to a victim, but DPD generally responds to emergency situations with 3 minutes.
Last summer I had a breakin while at work it took 45 minutes for DPD to arrive.. I made it home before the cops arrived ! The dispatcher transposed my address, a tape recording if which was provided to me from my alarm company .. Humans make mistakes so don’t count on someone else to be there the moment you need them! Your safety is your responsibility!
That is a very rare occurrence not at all typical of DPD.
Sig P556 with a 40 rnd PMag running Hornady TAP urban and a mounted 500 lumen SureFire.
Better not still be there when I make it downstairs.
Even if you have a firearm in the house, shouldn’t your top two priorities be calling the police and getting out of the house? Or maybe vice versa? Kind of like if there’s a fire?
Why would you have a firearm if when it’s time to protect yourself you intend to flee instead of stand your ground? If you’re going to own a firearm then you need to have the mindset of when and how safely to use it or it just becomes an expensive hammer. If someone is breaking into my car I’m not going after them with my gun but if they break into my home and I’m there you can bet they’re going to be looking down the muzzle of my shotgun!
So, you won’t call 911?
Yes of course but my first order of biz is to protect myself and my family. In our present plan my wife would go to a designated area and make that phone call… Just like with protecting yourself in case of a fire you should also have a drill in place for other emergencies. If the burglar was downstairs and you and your family were upstairs with no way of evacuating what would you do… When adrenaline starts pumping the response is fight or flee so you’ll have to make your own choices.
Guns in the Home and Risk of a Violent Death in the Home: Findings from a National Study, American Journal of Epidemiology (2004) 160 (10): 929-936.
Abstract
Data from a US mortality follow-back survey were analyzed to determine whether having a firearm in the home increases the risk of a violent death in the home and whether risk varies by storage practice, type of gun, or number of guns in the home. Those persons with guns in the home were at greater risk than those without guns in the home of dying from a homicide in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 1.9, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 3.4). They were also at greater risk of dying from a firearm homicide, but risk varied by age and whether the person was living with others at the time of death. The risk of dying from a suicide in the home was greater for males in homes with guns than for males without guns in the home (adjusted odds ratio = 10.4, 95% confidence interval: 5.8, 18.9). Persons with guns in the home were also more likely to have died from suicide committed with a firearm than from one committed by using a different method (adjusted odds ratio = 31.1, 95% confidence interval: 19.5, 49.6). Results show that regardless of storage practice, type of gun, or number of firearms in the home, having a gun in the home was associated with an increased risk of firearm homicide and firearm suicide in the home.
And there’s this: “…A New York Times review of hundreds of child firearm deaths found that accidental shootings occurred roughly twice as often as the records indicate, because of idiosyncrasies in how such deaths are classified by the authorities…” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html?pagewanted=all
Sharkey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a gun or that you shouldn’t use it as you see fit to protect yourself and your family. But other reasonable, responsible people can make different choices about which risks they’d rather take.
And there’s this: “…A New York Times review of hundreds of child firearm deaths found that accidental shootings occurred roughly twice as often as the records indicate, because of idiosyncrasies in how such deaths are classified by the authorities…” [Tried posting w/ a link, there seems to be a hiccup in the moderation/address verification mechanism. So you can find the article at nytimes under “Children and Guns–The Hidden Toll.”]
Sharkey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a gun or that you shouldn’t use it as you see fit to protect yourself and your family. But other reasonable, responsible people can make different choices about which risks they’d rather take.
Since TOK and STG are so concerned about increased risk, I would assume that neither of them ever drive or ride in any type of motor vehicle, nor ever let their children do so, as the odds of death or injury are incomparably higher than any firearm related injury.
It’s not about “increased risk,” but instead about assessing various risks and making individual choices about which ones to accept and which ones to avoid. We all make trade-offs, every day and in many contexts.
Would that it were so. The world is full of gun grabbers, and many of them are in Congress.
I can’t see any evidence that there are “many gun grabbers” in Congress. What is crystal clear is that our legislators have no collective stomach for passing any type of reasonable gun measure, let alone for anything that could be characterized as confiscating weapons. Did I misunderstand “gun grabbing”? Could you clarify?
BTW, you might want to actually read the article. Its main point is that we don’t really have a reliable count of how many children are injured and killed by firearms. Based on the data and analysis cited, it is likely that other perils are not, in fact, “incomparably higher.”
It’s also difficult to quantify how many people/children were SAVED because of a gun. But I’m with you, to each their own…
Walrus, that’s why I like the article I posted the abstract for above. I don’t doubt that there have been cases where people have saved their lives or the lives of loved ones because they have a gun in the house. But the article’s conclusion is what “persons with guns in the home were at greater risk than those without guns in the home of dying from a homicide in the home.” It looks at overall rates, and so it seems that whatever benefit there is in perhaps avoiding a homicide using a weapon in self-defense is outweighed by increased risks elsewhere.
Aren’t you extrapolating based on an admitted unknown? If we don’t know how many more children are injured or killed by firearms, how can we arrive at the conclusion that firearms pose a comparable risk as life’s other perils?
No, I’m not “extrapolating based on an admitted unknown.” I’m commenting on a newspaper article in which a case is made that the actual incidence of children being accidentally killed or injured by guns may be up to twice as high as “official” counts reflect. And I’m not arguing against keeping (and using) a gun for personal protection. I’m just saying it’s not unreasonable to make a different choice.
Correlation does not imply causation. Quote from article:
“it is possible that the association between a gun in the home and risk of a violent death may be related to other factors that we were unable to control for in our analysis. For instance, with homicide, the association may be related to certain neighborhood characteristics or the decedent’s previous involvement in other violent or illegal behaviors. Persons living in high-crime neighborhoods or involved in illegal behaviors may acquire a gun for protection. The risk comes not necessarily from the presence of the gun in the house but from these types of environmental factors and exposures.”
“Persons living in high-crime neighborhoods or involved in illegal behaviors may acquire a gun for protection.”
Thanks for pointing that out. It’s clearly a chicken-egg thing at best.
Not at all. Owning a gun isn’t a crime. Thus, the fact they own a gun doesn’t make it a high crime neighborhood. The gun ownership (for protection) is a result of the crime and not a cause.
Sorry, I probably didn’t make my point very well. That study is garbage, because it doesn’t control for external factors, as they admitted. Many homes have guns precisely because they are in high-crime neighborhoods, and need them for protection. Thus the blame for the homicide is not the gun in the house but the crime in the neighborhood.
The cases of keeping a gun at home and driving aren’t parallel. The whole point of keeping a gun at home, I take it, is to increase your safety, but it looks like it doesn’t do that. I drive despite the risks because I want to get from point A to point B. To say that “I keep a gun at home despite the fact that it increases my chances of being killed because I want to increase my safety” offhand seems a little odd.
A parallel case to driving would be people who hunt despite the risk of getting accidentally shot. The point of hunting isn’t to increase your personal safety, but recreation and/or food.
Until it does.
I’ve never quite understood why leaving the house during a burglary is considered a good idea. I’m with Sharkey. I’ve picked my spot to hunker down with my family and planned a lane of fire that will minimize risk and exposure. Leaving the house sounds like a good way to run into the burglars especially if you’re asleep in an upstairs bedroom at the time they come in. I’m no gun nut and dislike that I own one, but boy do I sleep better at night. Of course, we’ll be calling 911 but only after securing ourselves first.
I have one of those ladder thingies for all upstairs windows. Downstairs, we just climb into the yard. For us, number one priority is the Decatur Police call because I am positive that having them on the way will help all situations. Number two is getting out. I am positive that I am safer screaming up and down our street then captive in the home. If I had a firearm, I’d be busy trying to open the child-safe storage area, assuming I could get to it. Given my recent experience with trying to open our safebox for documents, I would not trust my nimble fingers in an emergency.
And don’t forget the alarm is going to be making a lot of noise and the alarm company will be contacting the authorities while you’re trying to think straight… The last thing I’m suggesting is that anyone gets hurt but I’d rather live to tell the story!
Hey guys! Sorry, I don’t have time to read all the comments. Can someone just tell me if we’ve started calling each other idiots for owning/not owning guns?
LOL!
Head on over to the North Decatur Road diet discussion for a refreshing, never heard before, back-and-forth on cars vs. bikes vs. pedestrians.
Stupid bikers. The only people dumber and more ignorant are car drivers. And don’t even get me started on piddling pedestrians. Amirite?!?
Aw, did I miss this week’s firearm circle jerk?