I was just a victim of one of the gentlest theives ever. My car was broken into last night in front of my apartment building in Centreville. The guy jimmied my door lock, pulled off the plastic surround dash peice, placed it on the back seat, pulled out my pos sony xplode cd player, cut the wires and stuffed them back into the dash. He then took my backpack and emptied it of the $400.00 worth of college text books and all my school work, placed them on the driver seat, closed the door so my battery wouldn't die, and left. I called the cops and they said that I was the 15th call that morning in my complex, The Reserve at Regency Park off of 28 on Newton Paton Drive. Enjoy the $50.00 head unit and 10 year old backpack! So worth it if you had gotten caught! It does give me an excuse to get a better sound system (and an alarm system) Oh well.

P.S. I know it was stupid to leave my books in the car and I called the cops simply to report it. I know they won't do dick. They didn't even send a car out. The cop called me and did the report by phone. Not that it matters. And my grammar is horrible. Thanks.

Damn, I'm really sorry that you had to go through that. Fortunately I've never found myself in your position, but plenty of my friends have.

BTW, they SHOULD have sent a Cop out to fingerprint the car. Everytime I've known someone who went through what you did, they had their car printed. One time they even lifted an entire hand print on the window.

The dispatcher asked me if i knew who did it. When i said no, she told me they wouldn't be sending an officer. My "hood" has gotten hit twice now in the past 3 months. I moved out of Woodbridge to get away from this crap. Oh well.

the FCPD is on the case! dont worry, if that jerk is speeding he will get a speeding ticket!... oh wait. catching actual criminals isnt profitable, so they do jack shit about crime.


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

LOL. I have never actually seen a FCP officer do anything. Even when I see them with a car pulled over, they are sitting in their cruiser. Hear no evil, see no evil.....

Part of living in a ghetto

I use to live in maryfield about 4 years ago, and this was happening all the time. My dad still lives in that area, and he said cops patrol the street all the time now. It hasn't happen in a while.

I've had my car broken into 3 times.. It sucks, i was unlucky and they broke my windows all 3 times to gain access.

I've been lucky so far with my new car, i think because it has an alarm.

Get an Alarm, get a detachable face plate, tint your car so it's harder to see at night. Make sure you don't leave anything in your car, you wouldn't leave outside on the sidewalk. Try and park under street lamps I doubt a thief is going to hang around in the light while a car alarm is going off.

If your really that concerned, get a 2nd battery for the alarm, so they can't just cut the battery terminal and make it turn off. You can also get one that will alert's you when it goes off.

Also make sure any car equipment (Sound, ect) is bolted to the car, insurance companies won't reimburse you for stolen subs if they are just sitting in your trunk.

I was also the victim of vehicle break ins last December in Centreville. I live on a main street in our subdivision and there are street lights on my lot and across the street with lots of car traffic. My neighbor saw a guy hanging around and smoking at 8:00 pm while he took his trash out on trash night. The guy didn't look right, so my neighbor went inside and watched from his window while this guy went through my son's car that was parked on the street, and then went up the driveway to hit my SUV and soft top Jeep (none were locked). He called his neighbor (a retired FBI agent) and they watched this guy get in each car and go through things (even using a flashlight he found in one of the cars) before taking off through my backyard and setting off the neighbor's motion lights.

The neighbors called the police while this was going on and I was literally sticking my head out the door calling for my cat while it was going on, but they were afraid to call me or confront the guy in case he was armed. This is a busy street and lots of joggers and dog walkers at that hour of night, so I was shocked when my neighbor came over to tell me someone had been in the cars.

I went out and waited for police. It was obvious they had gone through the center consoles and glove compartments, but nothing like radios missing, etc. 2 cars showed and one policeman took off through the back yards of the neighborhood looking for the guy while another had me go through vehicles to see what was missing. Change was there, electronics, etc., but it was obvious this guy spent time in each car as there were cigarette ashes everywhere and stuff strewn around front seats. I finally identified an empty sleeve for a season of 24 that my son watched on his laptop during trips and told them I wasn't sure about anything else specific.

Next thing we knew, police helicopter was here and they were tracking the guy. They found him hiding in the woods near Sully Station Safeway and he was trying to cover himself with leaves. He had the 24 DVDs on him and my neighbor went with police to ID him. Police then came back and asked me if I would come to court to testify and told me that they believe this same guy had punched another neighbor who also caught him going through his truck on Braddock Road.

I went to court and the arresting officer showed me what they recovered. It was toothbrushes (our dentist gives us a new one every visit and a few end up in the car), batteries (we keep them for flashlights to let my son read in car), my son's 24 DVDs and not much more. We had a DVD player in the back of the SUV and there was change in all the cars that he didn't touch. The "guy" turned out to be a HS senior and the arresting officer told me he had caught some of these kids with closets of stuff that they were just hoarding and not even bothering to try and sell. The kid didn't live in our area, so I wonder if he wanted keys, but he went through cars that were blocked in on the drive way and bypassed others on street. He also had gone through cars on several streets and apparently had hit the guy (who also showed up in court) before coming to my street.

After I sat down with the state's attorney and showed him the DVD sleeve that matched the DVDs that the arresting officer had a picture of, it turns out that the kid copped a plea and was sentenced to a month. I think they dropped the assault charge (not sure why) and they mentioned a separate charge for being under the influence (which court records show was actually a different day) being handled separately. Seems like such a waste for this kid to go to jail for stealing a bunch of junk, but the police were great and very thorough in their response. Of course, they had timely info and a good chance to catch the guy because my neighbors were vigilant. We had no idea what was being taken from other vehicles (owners weren't home for one that got hit down the street) and we didn't know he had assaulted someone else until much later. I was more than a little shocked to hear that the kid had been caught by someone else before he calmly staked out our cars in a very public space.

Instead of blaming police for not being everywhere, I would recommend that your neighborhood get together and watch out for return visits from the punks that hit you. The police will work with you if they have a credible chance of catching these folks. What's being taken may seem insignificant, but there is a lot of this going around due to some desperate times. Good luck and thanks for alerting others!!

I also think that this kid was advised by his attorney to show up and court and hope we didn't show to testify. Because I showed up with the other man, the attorneys got busy. Don't know what would have happened if we had just left it up to courts.

tl;dr

Blessed are the murderous.

I see a lot of broken safety glass in centreville these days...

Yeah, I was just kidding about the police. I was a cop in the AF not to long ago and my next door neighbor is a FFX county cop. Whats funny is that i was parked next to his take home vehicle. (EOD-K9)

eesh Wrote:
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> tl;dr

+1


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

What did the steal?

Resident Wrote:
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> What did the steal?

a person was what stole.


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."

I like the idea of a phone report. If a mexican stole your shit press one, if a brother took your shit press two, if a redneck stole your shit press three.

+100 Tim45. Resident, are you kidding me? Read the org. post there guy.

Tim45 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I like the idea of a phone report. If a mexican
> stole your shit press one, if a brother took your
> shit press two, if a redneck stole your shit press
> three.


Lol, I think most callers wouldn't find much of a need to bypass "One".

BTW, one time someone did "Run Capers" in my neighborhood, and what sucked is that I heard it when it was going on, but I didn't realize what it was. It was around 5:00 AM, on a Workday, and I heard multiple car door shutting noises. I honestly figured that it was simply a neighbor or two going between their house and car before work, but it turns out that a group of junky bums came through looking for loot. Two of my family's cars were left unlocked (I have no idea why, we normally lock everything), and I found out later that day that some CD cases and their CD's were discovered laying shuffled around, and napkins from the gloveboxes had been scattered, but fortunately nothing was taken, and nothing was broken. Our other locked vehicles were also left alone, because we all know better than to leave valuables in our cars (I learned a lot from spending quite a bit of time in D.C. as a kid, and I consider the hiding and securing of valuables in vehicles to be common sense knowledge).

However, two of my direct neighbors had valuables stolen, including one neighbor who left her purse on her front seat! They smashed her window (They assumed correctly that it had no alarm too), and they jacked it all. We have a walking path nearby, and a trail of goodies from the purse was left behind (Including some un-usable cheques).

In the end however, the crooks were stupid enough to use one of the lady's credit cards, and they were caught on camera doing it. The FCPD busted them, and it turned out that I had known one of the kids since Elementary School. I hadn't seen him in years, but regardless, it was really weird (I remember this kid stealing ground beef from Giant, and running away with it on his bicycle as a 12 yr. old or so).

His parents didn't even try to defend the kid (He was an adult age-wise), and they told the ADA to lock him up. He was tried, convicted, and I believe he received and served roughly One Year behind bars in the ADC.

No one ever said criminals were the smartest bunch.

All this makes me think I shouldn't store a pistol in my center console (concealed obviously so you'd never know it's there).

I just don't want to carry all the time on my person.

Thats gangsta Mofo. Just bolt down a small lock box under the driver seat and keep it in there. Then you should sprinkle some diamonds on it because thats the pimpinest thing you can do to a lock box. I'm going to call Charles Bronson in to rig up some sweet booby traps in my rig.

leave a sticky that says "my stereo and speakers have a GPS tracking unit built-in and the police will find you within 45 minutes"

Honestly though, i'm not complaining. I don't have an alarm and my dumb ass left my back pack in the car. I just wanted to post this to let others in the area know whats up. Plus, it's funny that they will have to pay the pawn shop to take that pos stereo.

Police Rock Wrote:
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He called his neighbor (a retired
> FBI agent) and they watched this guy get in each
> car and go through things (even using a flashlight
> he found in one of the cars) before taking off
> through my backyard and setting off the neighbor's
> motion lights.

WTF, so a retired FBI agent stands around and does nothing! Sounds farfetched to me.

Gravis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the FCPD is on the case! dont worry, if that jerk
> is speeding he will get a speeding ticket!... oh
> wait. catching actual criminals isnt profitable,
> so they do jack shit about crime.

truer words have yet to be spoken... write tickets and make dui arrests. everything else costs money.

Mofo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> No one ever said criminals were the smartest
> bunch.
>
> All this makes me think I shouldn't store a pistol
> in my center console (concealed obviously so you'd
> never know it's there).
>
> I just don't want to carry all the time on my
> person.

Get a safe to keep in your car. Bolt it to the ground or get a cable-lock and loop it around your seat (while affixed to the safe obviously).