Just two days ago, we reported that several vehicle and home break-ins had been reported in Hancock Park and Brookside over the past few days….and unfortunately, as our current heat wave continues, so does the hot local crime wave.
On Wednesday, several different neighbors in the Larchmont-Beverly North area reported on the NextDoor.com social media site that a package left on a doorstep for UPS pickup had been stolen, mailboxes were broken into at an apartment building on N. Windsor near Melrose, a man was seen peering into windows of homes and vehicles on N. Norton, between Clinton and Elmwood, and someone forced open a window at a Larchmont-area duplex and stole the resident’s jewelry.
Most of these incidents have already been reported to the police, according to those who posted them…but this rash of crimes, within such a short period of time, reminds us to remind our readers to always report such activity, no matter how minor. Whether or not LAPD has the resources to follow up on minor crimes, it still uses details of crime reports – of all types – to plan policing activities and to deploy resources both daily and long term. But if the police don’t know about a crime – or, in this case, a pretty concentrated rash of crimes – they can’t see patterns that could help lead them to the perpetrators…and they can’t report accurate crime statistics for our neighborhoods.
After a similar spate of break-ins a few months ago, LAPD Senior Lead Officer Dave Cordova told the Buzz, ‘If residents can take the time to email their block captains, they should also be contacting us.” The same would probably be true for social media – if it’s worth reporting there, it’s worth reporting to LAPD.
