in the neighbourhood
about five minutes ago i saw a young man breaking into the church next door and rang the police.
i explained it all to them and they've now locked my cellphone so i can't make any other calls. i'm now sitting here on the puter waiting for them to phone or knock on the door - i've seen at least three cops at the church, they keep disappearing around the front of it, where i can't see them, and now we appear to have the police helicopter circling above.
i really really hope it wasn't someone legit who had just lost his keys. i've been told to stay in the house until the police come and talk to me.
there's a police officer right now stanidng at the back corner of the church looking at it. he seemed much less urgent than they did earlier, when they arrived, so i'm guessing that either i was wrong or there's no sign of the guy.
the helicopter sounds further away too, although once the sound is in your ears it's hard not to think you are hearing it, if that makes sense. no wait, it's closer again.
i'm not sure what is going on - there are no cops at the back of the church, in fact i can't even see their cars - hang on, they are on our street (the church is on the corner), i can see the car if i peer out the window to the right.
nothing happening now.
i must say they are taking it very seriously, and they responded very quickly. the woman on dispatch was very efficient and effective. my cellphone doesn't seem to be locked anymore, so i guess that means things are ok? i can see the police now, with the guy that i saw breaking in!!!
they were walking towards the car, but i can't see them anymore, he was just walking with the two of them, not in handcuffs or anything. two more police have walked across the road in the other direction.
i have this really weird feeling of adrenalin. when i saw them with the Blue Tshirt Guy (oops I told the policewoman on the phone it was grey, just goes to show how accurate eye witnesses are) i was worried they were going to knock on the door and ask me if he was the guy and then tell me off, that he was legit. But they haven't knocked on the door or anything.
I just saw a police car drive up the road, past the church, but the one that i could just see out the window is still there.
I'm going to go peer out the lounge window for a sec and see if i can see anything more from there.
nope, can't see anything. I can't work out where they took Blue Tshirt Guy at all.
very nervy right now.
we were burgled last week, and I know that the church has been broken into several times in the past too. gosh I hope it's ok. In a way I actually hope it's not the guy who broke into our place, as then we might be more of a target, they might come back to our house, or come when we are home.
still nothing - can't see any of the police, although one of their cars is still there. the helicopter is definitely gone. starting to feel less stressed about it. i'm really really hungry but i don't want to leave the window in case something else happens (gosh i'm just a nosey neighbour really).
there's another young guy just turned up with a basketball and the police, and Blue Tshirt guy are going to talk to him, ok Blue Tshirt guy just ran off with the other young guy, so I guess they questioned him and it's all legit? Police must be coming here now?
More later i guess.
ok i'm going to post this
4 comments:
cool a leftie live blogging a crime in progress
well it turns out it probably wasn't a burglary - what i've blogged is about all i know, except that the young guy must have got in again through the front door, which suggests he was legit, because he then yelled incoherently out the window at me several times. i've heard nothing from the cops and they never knocked on my door at all.
i know they are busy people but here's an idea for a better way to deal with this:
the cops should have brought the guy over to my house and explained what the situation was, then i could have said "sorry mate, we got burgled last week and i'm a bit paranoid right now, hope you're ok" and then he could have seen how embarassed i was and would have accepted my apology rather than now hating my guts and not knowing the context from my point of view. i actually feel scared in the house now for the first time since we were burgled, because i'm worried this kid thinks i did it out of malice towards him and will thus retaliate.
although i have to say, to anyone out there who is unsure, dragging a wheelie bin around to the back of a building, putting it under a window, climbing on top of it, opening the window, climbing through it, looks dodgy to anyone. it really does. doesn't it?
Do you live in a high crime part of town or was the burglary rare in your area?
If you live in a high crime area you will no doubt be burgled again, and may need to move. When living in otahuhu a few years back i was burgled 3 times in a year. It seems after they'd had luck once it gave them confidence to keep coming back, they seemed to know how to circumvent locks and alarms.
The personal invasion is highly unsettling, especially if they have rifled through personal papers or clothing.
I will never live in otahu again.
well we are just off a reasonably notorious street - our street is not too bad, but the other road is pretty terrible.
our current neighbours (we have the church on one side, these guys on the other) used to own the dairy just up the road (on the other street) and they were robbed several times, once at gunpoint, another time the robbers took the two guys (father and son) out the back and beat the crap out of them. we only found this out after we were burgled ourselves, of course.
i don't think our area would qualify as high crime compared to somewhere like otahuhu, but it seems pretty high to me with my white bread upbringing! we are lucky that all the doors are solid wood, which means once there are deadlocks on them it is hard for anyone to get in or out them.
there's not much you can do about windows, someone can always break one and climb in, but if we remember to turn the alarm on and make it hard for them to get stuff out of the house (ie through the doors) fingers crossed we will be ok.
it was a pretty professional job and i guess this is why we have insurance!
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