Unwrapping The Post-Christmas HoHoHo…

There’s nothing better than someone bringing you a locally-sourced, homegrown breakfast with fresh-squoze Orange Juice, Mother Pacifica supplying the backbeat and the Cascadia Subduction Zone refraining from any seismic antics while we visit.

Odd how the heart rate evens out and the breath comes more easily when we’re on the coast.

Riffling through the email – and understanding full well that email doesn’t riffle – it appears that you all have been busy whilst we were away over the Holiday. Some of you were imbued with Christmas Spirit, some not so much, some merely full of spirits, and others – like us – preferring refugee status and lighting out for parts well-known.

Hope everyone had a chance to stand down and refresh, we needed the Down Time. Locally, the criminally inclined chose to stay on the job, with some nasty incidents going down on the great day itself. Apparently Newton’s Third Law – with every action creating an equal and opposite reaction – came to fruition as local crime is creating its own responses, with sometimes humorous results.

We’ve counseled increased vigilance as we endure this most recent flurry of house-breaking, safe-cracking, and car-swapping and the good news is that you’ve been listening. The bad news is we need to sharpen those vigilance skills a bit.

People are focused on their Ding-a-Ling cameras and the whole See Something, Say Something maxim is in play. The problem is what we think we’re seeing isn’t always what we’re actually seeing, and those cameras can only do so much.

As police deal with the spiking burglary rate and carloads of skilled house-crackers with knowledge of home-defense systems and the radar slipping skills of a B-2 heavy bomber prowl our neighborhoods, good people are doing their level best to stop them.

The police are working hard, let’s just say that, but locals are also stepping up, putting on high-visibility Volunteer jackets and patrolling their ‘hoods. Commendable. But in this age of cameras, remote monitoring, cell phones and a “I’ll call it in, someone else can check it out” mentality, mistakes are being made.

Turns out, some residents didn’t get the memo about the neighborhood volunteers, who check for weak points in home defense systems, and they’re dropping dimes on the helpers as “suspicious.” And those camera owners monitoring their homes remotely are also making mistakes, calling down the Blue Thunder (police) on errant husbands, delivery drivers, tardy teens and unexpected relatives who show up for visits in the middle of the night. And apparently we still haven’t figured out that Amazon and other delivery services contract with private vendors to ramp up package delivery over the Holidays – and aren’t looting trucks.

All this while those carloads of bad guys slip through our defenses seemingly at will, coming to our attention or one of those strategically placed Flock cameras only after they’ve made off with a box safe, the TV or a catalytic convertor.

We had an attempted kidnapping in Concord on Christmas Day (suspect later arrested in Walnut Creek) and a really nasty incident involving a Cro Magnon Racist Bro and some unfortunate diners in San Ramon on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Getting wind of those incidents really took the ho ho ho out of our sails, we have to tell you, and we’re hoping some justice prevails and the Blue Thunder comes down as police are on this Neanderthal’s trail. (Ed Note: Additional information on these incidents is coming in. We’ll update when/if anything becomes actionable.)

And, if you’re aware of the current spate of burglaries (so many of you aren’t) don’t feel your neighborhood or town/city is getting picked on – it’s happening up and down the 24/680.

If you are aware, good for you. Hopefully, you found some new and effective home security gizmos under your tree this Christmas.