Thousand Oaks Police Department July 29, 2010 City Watch Update

Here is the latest "City Watch" alert from Deputy Jim DeSoto of the Thousand Oaks Police Department. If you would like these updates directly from him via email, click here for more information.

Crime Fighters,

I hope everyone is having a great summer. While many are enjoying the beautiful weather and family excursions, the predators continue to take pleasure in victimizing the innocent. Some incidents are more frightening than others and one illustration would be discovering a stranger in your house.

This happened twice within the past month. In the first incident, the victim was upstairs when someone was pounding on the door and ringing the doorbell. The victim was busy at the time and did not have the opportunity to answer the door.  Minutes later, the victim heard an unfamiliar male voice downstairs when no one should have been at the house. The victim inquired who was inside and the victim did not recognize the voice and immediately screamed for help. Thankfully, the victim was not injured. This happened during the day and the offender used the ‘let’s break into the house when no one answers the door’ technique. It is so important to verbally respond when someone is at the door and to also report his or her behavior when the visitor’s explanation does not make sense or is dubious.  We need to identify these pretend solicitors and phonies of fabricated, fallacious fables.

In the second incident, in the early morning hours, the victim happened to be sleeping downstairs on a couch when the victim heard a noise. The victim woke-up to find a person in the process of entering the house. The intruder was just as surprised to find someone downstairs and he fled. In both cases the prowler was able to escape. In reviewing the reports, the incidents are not connected and they occurred in different areas of the city.

In the area of Ventu Park and Hillcrest Drive, an older man in his fifties found it necessary to expose himself to a female. The offensive, debauched person, who was wearing very little clothing, was hiding in the bushes and jumped out in front of the female who happened to be taking a late night walk by herself.  The victim ran off and reported the incident. This crude man was not located.

Construction tools seem to a favorite target for many thieves. Contractors frequently leave their equipment overnight at residences and buildings where they are remodeling or building from the ground up. When the equipment is left unsecured and unattended, the thieves are helping themselves to valuable equipment. These expensive tools are susceptible to theft because the risk of getting caught is worth the danger to the crooks.

At Cal Lutheran University, a construction site was raided and vandalized. Equipment and copper wiring were stripped from the site. The stripping of the copper wiring costs much more in damages to the equipment than the crooks will ever get for recycling the copper. The damage done to the gear and machinery was over $50,000.

Access card fraud and identity theft seem to be increasing. There have been multiple reports from victims who discovered fraudulent use on their credit or debit cards. Please make frequent reviews of your credit card and bank statements.

I usually do not write about scams and frauds because there are so many types of frauds that the list would be truly endless. One type that I came across, however, caught my attention. A suspect returned some stolen merchandise at Home Depot but because he did not have a receipt, and as a matter of policy, the store gave the suspect a gift card commensurate to the value of the items that were returned. The suspect went outside, found a victim and offered to sell him the gift card at a great rate. The victim and the suspect went inside Home Depot and the victim bought the gift card after Home Depot verified that there was money credited to the gift card. The victim went inside, obtained merchandise and attempted to pay for them with the newly bought gift card. The gift card, however, was now void and the victim was out the money he gave the suspect. What happened was that in the time between the suspect returned the merchandise and the time the victim attempted to buy his goods, Home Depot realized that the returned merchandise was stolen and voided the gift card. Once again, if it is too good to be true, a scam is probably attached to the ‘bargain.’

Finally, as an example of teamwork, two crooks found their way into the county jail with the help of two observant witnesses. Thefts occur frequently at grocery stores and most of the time the culprits get away but this one has a different ending. Sticky Fingers went into a Von’s, loaded a cart full of groceries and shamelessly walked out without paying for the items. An employee noticed what happened and another person followed Sticky Fingers where he unloaded the groceries with the help of an accomplice into an awaiting vehicle. The witness obtained the license plate and the police summarily responded. Because the efforts of the witnesses, the county jail happily received two guests who were no strangers to this bed and breakfast inn.

Have a splendid weekend,

Jim (DeSoto)