Unless you’re living in a cave, every resident living in Lakewood, NJ knows about the recent rash of break-ins of homes and cars. YWN got pounded via email, by angry residents in recent weeks asking us to post an article regarding the daily burglaries.
Besides for a bunch of emails, YWN did not have much info to print – until we were contacted by Lakewood Police Chief Rob Lawson. The Chief felt it was time to reach out to the Lakewood community to ask for their assistance. The Chief spent a considerable amount of time with YWN on the telephone, and gave us some shocking statistics.
What Lakewood residents do not realize is that 84% of the burglaries did not show any evidence of “forced entry”. This is a golden opportunity for burglars. For example, one of Lakewood’s leading Askonim whose home was broken into two weeks ago, had left every window in the home unlocked!
“This is a dream-come-true for a burglar”, Lawson told YWN. “They walk around in the dark of night behind homes and simply check doorknobs, windows, and garage doors.” This is the same for the cars which the owners find missing items in the morning. “A crook simply walks down a street and tries car doors until they find one open. Then they take a GPS, cash, and anything else they see”, says Lawson.
Chief Lawson says that he has reached out to the Ocean County Sheriff Department, and Ocean County Prosecutors Office for assistance in apprehending the burglars. “I’m not embarrassed to say that I’ve asked for outside help. We have a problem here and we need to fix it. My officers are trying their hardest to catch these guys. Just this past Thursday, one of my officers arrested a man sifting though a car on Chateau Drive at about 9:45PM,” says the chief.
Although the community has the right to demand adequate protection from the LPD, and the LPD needs to do their best to apprehend the burglars which have infested the community, Chief Lawson is specifically concerned about the upcoming Pesach holiday (when many people leave town), and is asking all residents to please take the following steps to protect their properties.
*Make sure you lock your doors and windows. Although we all wish we can live in an area where we can leave them unlocked, sadly that neighborhood no longer exists in most of the world.
*If you have an alarm installed in your home – USE IT! The chief says that many folks do have alarms, but never set them. “Just last week, an alarm went off in the dead of night waking a homeowner. Sure enough it scared away a burglar”, Lawson says. If you can, have an alarm system installed in your home.
*Make sure the exterior of your home is well lit. Burglars tend to choose homes which are poorly lit.
If you are going away for Yom Tov:
*Set your lights on timers.
*Have a neighbor take your mail in each day.
*Leave a set of keys, and your contact numbers with a trusted neighbor in case of emergencies.
The Chief wished everyone a Happy Passover, and hoped that in the near future YWN will report the arrests of these individuals burglarizing the Lakewood community.
(Dov Gordon – YWN)
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11 Responses
If you have cleaning help..make sure you check all the windows and doors that are normally locked. There have been many instances recently, where the cleaning help worked as an accomplice. What many of them do is case the house, while cleaning and leave a back window or door open. (Sometimes they might even be innocently cleaning the window).
I also think that people should take pictures of their cleaning help as a standard procedure. (I myself don’t) I feel there might be a little more feeling of accountability on their part. The way it is currently set up, when a cleaning person stops showing up, many times you would have no way of tracking them down. the description that you give to people would in most cases be too broad, a picture can really help.
My home in Lakewood was unfortunately burglarized last winter and it was with forced entry. The guy broke my basement window and came in that way.
Best idea is follow the above advice REGARDLESS WHERE YOU LIVE. As unfortunate as it is there are gonavim and other law Unabiding citizens in almost every place. Main thing is to keep you, your family and your belongings safe, and everyone should have a Chag Kasher V’Sameach!
try to get a copy of their passport
In a place where people are so educated they cannot understand that opoen doors and windows are an open invitation for intruders? If you have a home,you’re supposed to be responsible to protect it and your family living inside it.Why not give out your secret passwords too?Locks work!
Put up gates in front of basement windows. Seder night is ‘leil shimurim’,but that doesn’t mean one can be careless. Hashem is always watching over us. One does not know how many times he could have been robbed but wasn’t. That doesn’t give us a right to “tease fate (Hashem)”The police can only do so much. People have to do their part. Have a safe and secure Yom Tov!
my house was broken into in lkwd – the windows were LOCKED and the house was ALARMED. the perps broke the lock, and part of the window with it. i saw them doing it, as i was calling 911. the point is: we are being told that they dont do forced entry, and that everyone here is farshluffen and doesnt lock up. IT IS NOT TRUE. there are many forced entries. we are sitting ducks, while 8 officers try to patrol the whole lkwd. maybe they should swap the day & the night shifts – put on 25 cops at nite and 8 by day! (at least we’ll get less tickets…)
Does anyone know what is holding up the community patrol? I hear there are legal problems. Your right there are also forced entries but you have to be foolish to leave your windows, doors and car unlocked.
Thank You Chief Lawson & the LPD for doing what you can to keep our neighborhood safe. Thank you as well for these small but important security tips.
Keep up the good work!
my home was broken into last year and lots of money and all my jewelry was taken… i learned my lesson and went to ARROW LOCKSMITH
Of what i heard is that Lakewood Civilian Watch aren’t active at the moment because they’r working on obtainig permits for lights so they can drive around at night with them for visibility to try and scare away potential criminals, i was told some of the cops were giving them issues with them, due to the fact that they haven’t got permits for them yet.