Protect Yourself Against Thieves

To the editor:

Ready for this? St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, which has been hit three, yes count ’em, three times, for copper, twice within a week, had another attempted ripoff the other night. Luckily, the thief was frightened off by one of the volunteer parishioners who give up their warm beds to patrol the church grounds nightly.

You must have read how for the second time BART was vandalized, with the thieves going out on the tracks themselves. Here in Antioch, this week Marsh Elementary School got hit for the second time. And the beat goes on and on. If you’ve got copper faucets or copper pennies laying around the house, you better have a guard dog. These people are crazed!

On another note, my neighbor was monitoring their outside video cameras the other afternoon when they saw five male youth approach a neighboring house of folks vacationing in Europe. The suspects then proceeded to kick the door down.

My neighbor called the police, but no patrol car was available because of a fight somewhere in Antioch. Eight minutes later the thieves started leaving the house and my neighbor called the police again.

This time they sent out five cars and were apparently able to catch at least two of the suspects, who were running through back yards and climbing fences, including my mother in law’s around the corner from me. In fact, one of the suspects was filmed taking out a change of clothes from his backpack but didn’t change his flaming red socks. The foolishness of youth!

My best advice: get an alarm (which the broken-into folks didn’t have; try to get a house sitter if you are gone; have a dog; iron gate your door; start a Neighborhood Watch. The police are doing their best, but with a force down well over 30 uniformed cops, the ruling maxim is that God helps those who help themselves.

Walter Ruehlig
Antioch


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