A reader in West Brattleboro writes to alert us to the recent wave of break-ins in West Brattleboro, and sent along this summary of a conversation with the Brattleboro Police sent out in a West Brattleboro Association e-mail, for details:
Hi, all –About 25 people came to the meeting at the Hayes Court Community Room last night. Chief Fitzgerald and Detective Carrier were our guests from the Brattleboro Police Dept.
Attached is the sheet that they handed out, along with a few of my scribblings.
Most burglaries occur during the daytime, when the burglar can more easily tell whether someone is home. The burglars just want to steal items they can then sell. They don’t want to have to confront anyone.Down at the bottom of the attached sheet you’ll find some data about the recent break-ins. The Chief and Detective did say that the total of 13 reported burglaries since Nov. 14 was several times what you would expect in a 4-month period.
Likely because 6 suspects have since been charged, the burglaries have essentially died down over the last month. Which, of course, is no guarantee that there won’t be more in the future.
They were definitely of the opinion that the burglaries have been related to drugs, and that the burglars wanted to steal items in order to then sell them in order to answer their drug habits. Suspects have included both men and women. The “groups” often include someone keeping watch from a nearby car while another person enters the home. The same groups have burglarized in both Vermont and New Hampshire.
They definitely invited anyone who sees suspicious, out of the ordinary activity in their neighborhood to call and report that to the P.D.The Brattleboro P.D. has 3 officers assigned to detective work.
The Neighborhood Watch program is not a program of the Police Department. To find out more about such programs, see web sites like www.nnwi.org.
– Michael B.
The reader adds: “14 break-ins in West B. is not the whole picture. At the meeting at Tri-Park several weeks ago the PD told the Mtn. Home residents there had been 20 break-ins in Mtn. Home Park alone over a several month period…”
The attachement is attached below.
