NEK Burglary Rate Down
- Details
- Created on Tuesday, 26 April 2016 15:55
- Written by Dylan Robichaud
Northeast Kingdom- The rates of Burglaries in Northeast Kingdom communities have gone down substantially over the last two years. According to the Saint Johnsbury police department, the number of burglaries that they responded to last year was 60, which is almost half of what they responded to in 2014.
Officers from the Saint Johnsbury police department are unaware of what could have caused this sudden drop.
“Per trooper I guess you could say there’s at least 15 or so that deal with a burglary throughout the year,” said Trooper Seth Loomis, from the Vermont State Police. “A lot of times it does correlate back to drugs.”
The Bradford barracks has seen a larger decrease in burglaries than Saint Johnsbury. In 2015 troopers responded to just 30 break-ins, that number is down from 77 burglaries back in 2014. Loomis says Burglars often work in groups of up to five, and over time if a certain group gets split up or caught.
In addition to working in groups, Loomis says burglars often do their research before breaking in to a home. He says they will often visit a home several times in advance to get an idea of when people are home or not. He also says vacation camps, as well as houses that reside outside of the village area are most vulnerable to be broken into because they wont get caught.
“Typically burglars will go up to the residence and scope it out, maybe knock on the doors, and see if different times of day if theres cars, or if theres anybody walking around and thats when they find out what the opportune time is to strike,” he said. “Theres a lot of seasonal camps, places that in the Summer time families will come up to enjoy them, and people that are doing the burglaries take advantage of that, they know people aren’t going to be there to stop them.”
When many of these homes get broken into, most of the items that turn up missing are either items which could be considered high in value, or prescription drugs.
“Their not always looking for items to sell for drugs, although that is to be suspected to be common, a lot of times we have reports of burglaries where folks are actually stealing prescription drugs or other drugs,” said Adrian Hahr, an officer for the Saint Johnsbury police department.
Dennis Labounty, a recent burglary victim has agreed to release his name to us. His home was broken into back in 2014, and he says he wont let this happen again.
“I don’t want to live in fear, i’m not going to live that way and be paranoid every time I leave the house and be worried if i’m going to be robbed or not, i’m not going to live like that,” he said.
Aside from the basics such as locking your car, your windows, and door, Police say there are ways to protect your self, such as having an alarm system that is directly linked to the police department.
“We ask people to register (their alarms) with the state police, that way then when an alarm does come in, we are going to respond to it. Typically some of the alarm companies will call us, but if their not on file with the state police we will not respond.”
Burglaries in the NEK from NewsLINC on Vimeo.