Break-in attempt at condos prompts cop reminder
(CNS): The police are reminding residents, holidaymakers and resort staff at local condos, apartments and hotel resorts to keep condos and hotel rooms secure following an attempted break-in at a Seven Mile Beach condo complex on Monday night. Acting Chief Inspector Ian Yearwood, of George Town police station, said simple security measures could help prevent residents and tourists becoming victims of burglary. Although nothing was stolen as the person staying in the condo disturbed the burglar, it was an unsecured patio door that tempted the would-be thief.
“The attempted burglary took place around 7.30pm last night when someone tried to enter a condo in Poinsettia through an unlocked patio door,” said the senior officer. “Luckily the culprit was disturbed by the householder and made off before entry could be gained or any property stolen. However, this once again underlines the importance of making sure that windows and doors are kept locked, particularly when access can be gained to some complexes relatively unnoticed via the beach.
“Our Neighbourhood Officers will be liaising with hotel and condo managers along the Seven Mile Beach stretch to remind them to underline the importance of these simple security measures to their residents and visitors. It’s basically a case of reminding visitors to take the same simple approach to security that they would do at home,” Yearwood added.
Anyone who requires advice about how to improve their home or business security should contact their local police station. Anyone who saw anything suspicious in the Poinsettia area at the relevant time last night is asked to contact George Town police station on 949-4222, the RCIPS tip-line 949-7777 or Cayman Crime Stoppers on 800-8477(TIPS).
Category: Crime
A very important consideration is:
What did the police do prior to this presumed burglary attempt to control or prevent crime at the complex?
Police patrols come instantly to mind. Did the police have a marked car, or cycling officer or other presence, at Poinsettia prior to this incident? When was the last patrol, if ever?
I have lived at various condo complexes on Seven Mile Beach since 1995. I do not recall ever seeing uniformed police patrolling at any of the properties. I have lived at the current complex for nine years. I have never seen any type of night time presence by police in those nine years, even though the burglaries are frequent. In the most recent, the burglars ripped a safe from a wall, and then drove it away, or walked it away. (For all I know, they may have used a wheel barrow to transport the safe!!!).
There may be 400 paid uniformed officers on the RCIPS. Perhaps more should spend time "in the trenches" at night, and the need for investigations the next day would reduce dramatically.
Sadly, Cayman is no longer a place where you can leave your door unlocked. No one deserves an intruder in their home, I'm sure it was frightening but we all need to be more careful now. You may find in addition that without the "breaking" part of B & E that your insurance company will not pay for anything that is stolen.
The door was locked, contrary to what the article says. That is why the would-be intruders were unable to gain access, though they spent several minutes trying (and not because they were disturbed, as suggested in the article)
This is a time for serious solutions, not mindless rhetoric. There is no time left for ignorance, foolishness, arguing, ranting and raving or blame games. Serious solutions, ideas. If you don’t have any you should remain quiet and listen. If you do have sensible innovative ideas then put them forward.
OK – solutions:
1. enforce the Maintenance Law (the fact you do not know what it says or how it would help shows how bad it has become).
2. take anyone under the age of 18 who cannot read and write and keep them in school until they can.
3. effectively investigate and punish all offenders at their first infraction. There is no deterrence. How many times do young people break the law in this society before anyone actually does something about it.
4. make deadbeat dads pay, and pay big.
5. enforce the immigration law.
6. open and professionally run a world class trade school (even if expats from North America or Europe need to be brpought in to run it).
7. stop being so accepting of teenage pregnancy – it destroys the lives of many of the young mothers, and their children.
Others welcomed.
Well said! i could not find a better way to put it! lets see what happens in the next 4 years shall we? we must act now or we will suffere for decades to come….
You're right. We need to up the game on our situational awareness: lock doors and windows. Put hardware cloth (small 'chicken wire') over open windows. Install burglar alarms, and infrared-motion detecting lights. Put baseball bats andmachettes in strategic locations all around your house, because that is ALL the goverment allows you to have. Please keep in mind that if a person breaks into your home, you must use 'equal force' to repel the criminal, so I expect that we're expected to be mind-readers and know what the intentions of the criminal are.
A couple of points to note about this story.
First, the condo door was not “unsecured” it was locked. The intruder spent some time trying to force it open but was unable to do so.
Second, the police were on the scene less than 5 minutes after the householder called them. Fair play.
The sad part is that the police will do nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why dont we see the police and I hold the top dog responsible for all that is going on!
Cayman is a small island and the police as well as immagration needs to do an island wide cleanup of all people that should not be here and we have tones of folks that are here on work permits that dont have work, so what do you think they are doing to feed themselves 😉
Good job for this poster that the police do not do anything about crimes againstthe English language.
"Although nothing was stolen as the person staying in the condo disturbed the burglar it was an unsecured patio door that tempted the would-be thief." I hope the police did not actually suggest that. Next they will say "she shouldn't have worn such a short skirt or walked on the beach alone." I am not saying we shouldn't all ytry to be responsible, but for God's sake stop blaming the victims!
Maybe some of the people that are unemployed could be suitably trained as police officers and patrol the resort areas and other areas more. We always hear that “the police can’t be everywhere.. ” and I understand that but it seems to me that there is a shortage of beat officers and we have unemployed people.. sounds like a match made in heaven. We cannot allow this to go on and basically tell visitors that come to the Island just remember to lock yourself up so you don’t get robbed..
That is not dealing with the real problem.. These cash for gold pawn shops are creating a source of cash for thieves.. just fencing stolen goods..they should be shut down.
Um, Just because someone is umemployed does not make them adequate to become police officers. Officers are in a position of high trust and authority. Not just anyone should be accepted or admitted into their ranks and certainly not just because there only qualification is because they are unemployed and would otherwise burgle…
Fair point and an obvious one, which leads to the more obvious of questions…when and how do we plan to clean up those unsavory officers who are already members of our RCIPS.??? Hmmmm should we deny that we already have many officers who are not worthy of such a position….lets start a clean up before we mix any more decent people with these lot…and for the buglars…you will soon learn again when someone blows a hole through you because you feel "entitled" to take what they worked sooo hard for!!!!
Fair play back to you…the question you raise about the "usavory" officers already IN the RCIPS is a fair one..unfortunately, a lot of those officers came into the RCIPS following Ivan when the country was in a shambles and the RCIPS was desparate for people. I know many of those officers who were given "temporary" commissions, were not even considered as being fit to even be specialConstables prior to Ivan. Those "temporary" commissions morphed into longer and longer times.. Unfortunately, they are entrenched now and have tenure..so getting them out is going to be difficult.. and with the complete impotence of the PSU, that situation is not likely to change any time soon…
Read the story. The police did not say that duh!
But why would you let that prevent yet another ‘blame the cops’ rant!
You've got to admit that condo was kind of asking for it, just standing there with an unsecured door, tempting the poor lad. Why did the condo do that if it didn't want to get robbed? Had the culprit not been "luckily disturbed" so he could get away, that condo could have ruined the future of a promising young man. Had the condo been drinking? And what was it doing there at that time of night? What was it wearing? Hard questions should be asked before a young man's reputation is tarnished with the label "robber".