I posted last week about the fire in the apartment above mine. My wife and I live in a two story house that is divided into two separate apartments with a shared entrance, and some good friends of ours live upstairs. For the last week, ServPro has been working upstairs cleaning up the fire damage.
Today, a couple of minutes after ServPro finished, my wife heard someone come in the front entrance of the house and head upstairs. She assumed it was either someone from ServPro or our landlord, but then she saw someone leaving a couple minutes later carrying our friends' flat-screen TV!
She yelled to me, and I ran outside to see a guy casually walking away from the house with the TV. I told my wife to call the police and then chased after him. When he heard me, he turned around and threw the TV towards me, then took off running. I chased him into the parking lot of an apartment complex but lost him. (Unfortunately, I was wearing a pair of Crocs, which aren't that great in a foot chase.) :cursing:
Someone in a nearby building spotted him and called out to me. Just then, one of my math students (who lives across the street) drove by. She stopped, I told her what was happening, and she offered to drive me around to find him. We found him about two blocks away, where he was walking casually, probably convinced he had gotten away. My student called 911 with our location, and we started to wait. After a minute or so he noticed us and began running, so I jumped out of the car and started chasing him again. I lost him in an alley, but a bicyclist pointed me in the right direction, and I found him again. At that point, I chased him through traffic, shouting for someone to help me stop him, then followed him into someone's yard, but he hopped a fence and I lost him for the third time. By then the police had caught up with me, and they took over.
Once I got home, an officer came by to investigate. He was surprisingly thorough: he lifted a fingerprint from the upstairs doorknob, and brought the TV to the crime lab for fingerprinting. (He brought it back about an hour ago; unfortunately, the prints were too smeared to be useable.) I was surprised that he actually took prints for a case like this, but the police department has been taking a lot of heat lately over two unsolved murders in the downtown Madison area. In both cases, the victim was murdered in the middle of the day in their own house, and at least one of them is thought to have occurred during a botched daytime burglary. It seems like they're taking burglaries in this area particularly seriously.
While we were waiting for the officer to arrive, my wife pointed out one car that had been parked near where the burglar had been walking. Presumably the burglar either lives nearby or had a car nearby. I looked in the car and saw a map of our area on the seat. Given the targeted nature and boldness of the crime, I suspect that he was somehow tipped off, possibly by the restoration crew. There was no way to know if the car belonged to the burglar, but we watched it just in case.
We pointed out the car to the officer when he arrived, and he made a note of the plate. While he was finishing up, a man who looked somewhat like the burglar but with a different outfit came walking down the street. He looked nervously towards us, then quickly jumped in the car we'd been watching. The police officer started walking towards the car to check him out, and the guy quickly drove away. It might be a coincidence, but the officer ran the plate and told us that an officer will visit the car's owner to investigate further. Hopefully, they'll catch the guy.
I'm still livid that this asshole had the audacity to burglarize my building -- my friends' apartment -- in broad daylight! I'm also pissed that I lost him, but at least the police have a good description from at least four witnesses, and there's a possibility that they have the guy's license plate. :angryteet
Today, a couple of minutes after ServPro finished, my wife heard someone come in the front entrance of the house and head upstairs. She assumed it was either someone from ServPro or our landlord, but then she saw someone leaving a couple minutes later carrying our friends' flat-screen TV!
She yelled to me, and I ran outside to see a guy casually walking away from the house with the TV. I told my wife to call the police and then chased after him. When he heard me, he turned around and threw the TV towards me, then took off running. I chased him into the parking lot of an apartment complex but lost him. (Unfortunately, I was wearing a pair of Crocs, which aren't that great in a foot chase.) :cursing:
Someone in a nearby building spotted him and called out to me. Just then, one of my math students (who lives across the street) drove by. She stopped, I told her what was happening, and she offered to drive me around to find him. We found him about two blocks away, where he was walking casually, probably convinced he had gotten away. My student called 911 with our location, and we started to wait. After a minute or so he noticed us and began running, so I jumped out of the car and started chasing him again. I lost him in an alley, but a bicyclist pointed me in the right direction, and I found him again. At that point, I chased him through traffic, shouting for someone to help me stop him, then followed him into someone's yard, but he hopped a fence and I lost him for the third time. By then the police had caught up with me, and they took over.
Once I got home, an officer came by to investigate. He was surprisingly thorough: he lifted a fingerprint from the upstairs doorknob, and brought the TV to the crime lab for fingerprinting. (He brought it back about an hour ago; unfortunately, the prints were too smeared to be useable.) I was surprised that he actually took prints for a case like this, but the police department has been taking a lot of heat lately over two unsolved murders in the downtown Madison area. In both cases, the victim was murdered in the middle of the day in their own house, and at least one of them is thought to have occurred during a botched daytime burglary. It seems like they're taking burglaries in this area particularly seriously.
While we were waiting for the officer to arrive, my wife pointed out one car that had been parked near where the burglar had been walking. Presumably the burglar either lives nearby or had a car nearby. I looked in the car and saw a map of our area on the seat. Given the targeted nature and boldness of the crime, I suspect that he was somehow tipped off, possibly by the restoration crew. There was no way to know if the car belonged to the burglar, but we watched it just in case.
We pointed out the car to the officer when he arrived, and he made a note of the plate. While he was finishing up, a man who looked somewhat like the burglar but with a different outfit came walking down the street. He looked nervously towards us, then quickly jumped in the car we'd been watching. The police officer started walking towards the car to check him out, and the guy quickly drove away. It might be a coincidence, but the officer ran the plate and told us that an officer will visit the car's owner to investigate further. Hopefully, they'll catch the guy.
I'm still livid that this asshole had the audacity to burglarize my building -- my friends' apartment -- in broad daylight! I'm also pissed that I lost him, but at least the police have a good description from at least four witnesses, and there's a possibility that they have the guy's license plate. :angryteet
