What’s happening in our Neighborhood?
Since November 2020, there are approximately 2–4 garage break-ins every night in the Richmond District neighborhood.
These professional burglars are organized, mostly active midnight — 6AM, work in small crews, and employ lookouts to evade capture.
Becoming more brazen each day, they are undeterred by passive security such as security cameras or motion-triggered outdoor lights. These burglars are now carrying bolt cutters, saws, drills and blow torches to make quick work of bike locks and anything else standing in between them and your belongings.
Most frequent items stolen include bikes (adult and children’s), tools, backpacks, and other easy hand-carried carried valuables. Recent break-ins have been targeting electronics (computers, etc.)
How are burglars getting into homes?
Emergency release latch
Triggering the emergency release latch (red rope and handle) with a wire hook inserted through a window, mailslot, or drilled hole is the primary way these burglars are accessing garages. Remove your emergency release cord and secure your emergency release latch (the trigger that detaches your door from the lift motor, allowing it to be opened in an emergency)
These below videos show how burglars are peering into garages, are undeterred by lights and security cameras, and are attempting to trigger an emergency release latch. (Both attempts were unsuccessful as the homeowners had secured their emergency latches using tips featured here.)