Monday, January 25, 2010

Sad Reminder


This picture tells a story that's being played out all over the city:  Bricks near the car, glass all over the ground, and a car with two broken windows.  Please heed the police's advice and keep nothing in sight in your car, not even a bottle of pop or spare change (remember that a smash-and-grab is 100% profit to the criminals).  A commenter even said: "How did the thieves know there was a GPS in my car? By the telltale circular ring that the suction cup leaves on the windshield."

7 comments:

  1. Anyone who's ever followed my advice (I follow my own) has never had a broken window.

    Leave nothing of value in your car. Do not lock your car. Thieves will open the door and may rifle your glove compartment. If they're out to rip up your dash they'll do it whether or not you lock the car. At least you'll save the broken window.

    There are, of course, the vandals who break windows for the hell of it. No way to stop them.

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  2. YoChicago is missing one potential problem.

    Leaving your car open may mean you return to find out it has a homeless person sleeping in it.

    In this ward it may even qualify for TIF funds.

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  3. I agree 100% with the good advice of keeping anything of value "out of sight, out of mind."

    Looking at this picture, I think that this may have been only partly a result of theft or attempted theft. Busting out the rear window of a sedan would not generally be a method of ingress by a thief of most any caliber. A punk vandal however would love the volume of glass and damage.

    Likely, there was a getaway vehicle of sorts as the more inconspicuous side to enter and exit the car would have been from the sidewalk side as often there is more cover from public view. Then again, I don't know where this vehicle was located at the time of this photo and maybe the street side was a "better" side to attack from.

    Either way it sucks...a side window is much cheaper & easier to replace as well as deal with than an entire rear window missing...especially with the current weather.

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  4. Once upon a time, many moons ago, I was a young Police Officer in the Lincoln Park area when there was a series of smash and grab thefts from autos parked overnight outside of the Lincoln Park Zoo.

    Our tactical team decided to set up a sting, so the tact sgt brought in an old TV and put it in the back seat of his personal vehicle and parked it on Cannon Drive, leaving all 4 of the doors unlocked. We all set up nearby in parked cars and behind trees and waited.

    Soon a car drove slowly by and dropped off a guy at the end of the block. The car circled around and the guy on foot began looking in the parked cars and when he came upon the sgts car he looked all around over his shoulders, then walked away.

    Shortly, the car returned and the guy on foot had a quick conversation with the driver. The car circled again as the guy on foot walked directly to the car with the TV. All the officers were on edge as they prepared to spring into apprehension mode. The foot guy stood by the car looking around until he saw his partner in the car coming up the street. All at once, the guy smashed out the rear window of the car, grabbed the TV, and jumped into the rear seat of the car that his partner was driving.

    The duo was arrested and charged and the sgt had to pay for a new window on his car. When asked why he didn't check to see if the car was locked, the bad guy said "WTF? Who leaves their car unlocked with a TV in it?"

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  5. great story big city police...now how about some ways to fix these problems in Uptown??

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  6. This incident occured on Saturday night and I actually witnessed it from my windows. The offender was a young woman who repeatedly threw a brick at the car window. It took about 8 tries for her to actually smash the window. She didn't take anything from the car. She casually walked down the street and got on her cell phone. I of course called 911 and gave the police a statement when they buzzed my door. I believe this was an incident of revenge and not theft. A woman scorned...

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  7. ameya said...
    great story big city police...now how about some ways to fix these problems in Uptown??

    January 26, 2010 4:00 PM


    An even greater story would be that these problems COULD BE "fixed".

    There is an entire political and criminal mindset that needs to be addressed first, not to mention the need for a societal revolution.

    You know how you're seeing all these campaign commercials about the Governor's early prison release program? What do you think the chances are of a car window smasher doing prison time when they are releasing REAL criminals from jail?
    And as long as the media does not expose these programs, they continue, unabated.

    The number of officers patrolling in north side districts, including Uptown, has been dwindling in recent years. When re-districting or re-distributing police manpower is mentioned, from warm and fuzzy areas of the city, to the murderous, crime-ridden pockets of the ghetto, invariably there is outrage from the taxpaying public on "Why should I pay taxes to have police protection supplied to non-taxpaying neighborhoods and not for my own community?" Politicians know this. So they pull the old 'smoke and mirrors' trick of ignoring the staffing numbers. In other words, instead of making a spectacle of taking police away from the "good" neighborhoods of the city via a public redeployment of manpower, the mayor is just doing it under the radar.

    The Department has created several large mobile police units that are moved around to combat violence in the high crime areas of the city. These units consist of HUNDREDS of officers. Problem is, they are siphoned from the districts which leaves District Law Enforcement seriously undermanned.

    Let me finally add that since neither Cook County nor the City of Chicago requires registered voters in City Or County elections to be U S citizens, it is to the politicians benefit to keep these potential voters out of jail. And, not only are criminals being released prior to finishing their prescribed prison sentences, there is mounting evidence that judges may be declining to properly convict and/or sentence criminals in the first place, (winds, perhaps, of a new Operation Greylord brewing in the Cook County Criminal Court system).

    Not a real surprise, I guess, when you consider that ALL of the Democratic judges must be slated by the Daley/Burke/Madigan Crime Family in order to fulfill their judicial aspirations!

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