POLICE
SAY BREAK-IN CULPRITS USUALLY YOUNG
By Joe Murchison
Richard Tripp was stunned when he came
home for lunch on Tuesday of last week. Burglars had made off with an estimated
$20,000 worth of belongings from his house on Bond Mill Road in West Laurel.
Between 10 a.m., when he left for work at the Washington Suburban Sanitary
Commission water plant a couple of blocks away, and his return around noon, the
thieves had taken electronic equipment, clothes, $10,000 in jewelry, all his
Christmas presents, a quilt and pillows, he said. They even stole his birth
certificate and Social Security card, hygiene items like toothbrushes and
shaving cream, and cooked spaghetti from a bowl in his refrigerator, he added.
"They ransacked (the place). It couldn't have taken them long."
Prince George's County police say that
Tripp's experience is unusual: that most burglaries are less sweeping.
"Most involve juveniles and young adults stealing to obtain quick cash or
video games," said Lt. Robert Raimond of the Beltsville station. He said
Tripp's was only the fifth residential break-in in West Laurel this year, and
none of the others showed any signs of being carried out by
"professionals."
West Laurel Civic Association President
John Dollen has called a meeting of the area's Neighborhood Watch group for
Wednesday, Dec. 8 at 7:30 p.m. at the West Laurel Community Building. Dollen,
who lives across the street from Tripp, is sensitive about break-ins because he
was a victim himself in January 1998. Someone smashed his basement window and
made off with 2 TVs, a shotgun and an electronic keyboard, he said. Dollen said
he had heard about a recent break-in just across the Montgomery County line on
McKnew Road, and another one at Briggs Chaney and Old Gunpowder roads, that had
a similar modus operandi to Tripp's burglary: quick strikes during the daytime,
with the burglars eating food from the refrigerator. He said both Prince
George's and Montgomery police would be at the meeting.
Dollen said police have told him that
crime spikes around the holidays. So far this year, the burglary rate in West
Laurel is well down from last year, when 20 were reported. Raimond said South
Laurel suffers more burglaries than West Laurel, with many of them at
apartments. He said the area from Contee Road north to the city line, including
Oak Crest and the Route 197 corridor, has had 73 residential burglaries this
year, with 52 of those at apartments. That rate is up from 1998, when 60 were
reported for the entire year.
The area with Laurel addresses south of
Contee Road and east of Route 1 has had 33 residential burglaries this year,
with 17 at apartments, Raimond said. This rate is down from 1998, when 76 were
reported for the entire year. For the entire District 6, which includes West
Laurel, South Laurel and Beltsville, residential robberies decreased 17% in the
first three quarters of 1999 compared with the same period in 1998, which in
turn was down from 1997.
Richard Dengler of Montpelier, one of 20
Prince George's residents serving on a county Police Chief's Advisory Board,
agreed with Raimond that burglaries are almost always by young people.
"Everything that's been done in our area has been done by 13- to
19-year-olds," he said. Dengler said a break-in occurred on his street,
Granite Lane, last week. The only thing taken was a VCR, and the suspected
thieves were caught trying to sell it to a pawn shop, he said. They were in
their upper teens or low 20s, he said. Montpelier has little crime, he said, and
he gave the credit to a strong Neighborhood Watch program and the efforts of the
Prince George's police. He said Capt. Gary Corso, second in command at the
Beltsville station, has directed his officers to drive through the neighborhood
while on their way to other places. "That's what we've asked for _ presence
_ and that's what we're getting," Dengler said.
Other jurisdictions had fewer burglary
statistics readily available. Lt. Fred Carmen of the Laurel Police Department
said the city has experienced 367 burglaries since the beginning of 1998
-- an average of 16 a month. He agreed that burglars are mostly
juveniles, and "the majority of burglaries tend to be of easily concealed
items -- jewelry, video games, that
kind of thing."
The break-ins also come in waves, he said.
Laurel police arrested a suspect and charged him with 17 break-ins about 1-1/2
months ago, and things have been quieter since, Carmen said.
In Howard County, statistics were not
available on break-ins for the North Laurel area. But Sgt. John Superson,
spokesman for the Police Department, said the break-in rate for the entire
county had been stable over the past five years, despite population increases.
The number of burglaries countywide has varied from 1,211 last year to 1,497 in
1997, Superson said. So far this year, there have been 975, he said.
The Anne Arundel County Police
Department's public information office did not return phone calls seeking
information.