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Thursday July 25, 2019 11:00 a.m.
BY BRIAN HEWS
A Cerritos resident and his family who live on the 17000 block of Newburgh Ave. in Cerritos had quite a scare this past Tuesday, July 23.
His family was startled to find a man in their backyard “making noise” at around 11:51 p.m.; frightened, they called the Cerritos Sheriffs.
The Cerritos station deputies responded with lights and sirens to the “burglary in progress” call.
A preliminary investigation revealed that the homeowner heard the prowler in his backyard banging on the door and demanding entry.
The brazen suspect was then heard breaking out their kitchen window, but by that time the father had taken serious, and some will say dangerous, action.
The brave father had confronted the prowler with a shotgun and scared him away.
The intruder fled the location prior to the deputy’s arrival with the victims reportedly hearing a car screeching away; neither the family nor the father saw the vehicle nor the direction of travel.
The family said the incident happened so fast neither of them got a good look at the suspect and “only saw his shadow,” after the father wielded the shotgun.
The report indicated that because of the actions of the father, the intruder did not make entry into the home nor was anything stolen.
However, the intruder’s vehicle was not located, so the sheriffs remained in the area throughout the night in case the intruder returned.
A follow-up investigation is underway with the sheriffs stating that the incident may be related to a similar incident that happened in the area the night before.
…..WHERE IS THE NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH ?????????
LACSD told me that the city of Bellflower, now supplements the sheriff’s by paying for a private independent Patrol. Like this idea and I’ve been throwing this out at Cerritos, for over two years and they’ve done nothing. Private Patrol does not make any arrests and does not have guns; they just cruises Street and Report directly to the Sheriff’s and then the sheriff’s respond.
Many yrs now, Cerritos Sheriff’s said they favor this and would like this, but then last week, brought it to our city manager and he did not like it, he said that where 7 million dollars in the whole this year, and if we employed private Patrol, we would be in the whole even worse. He said it’s a good idea, but we can’t afford it in this city. We only have four police cars on patrol during the daytime and one police car at night.
City of La Palma has only one police car day and night. If you remember, the city of La Palma had police students on bicycles from Daybreak till 10 in the morning to cruise their city, and they paid them $10 an hour and it was great, but then LP cut their budget during the recession, couldn’t afford it anymore. It was very helpful when kids are going to school, as these students who are learning to be policeman; were biking all throughout the city. Everyday in the morning right after day break, they would bike up/down LP streets, thru Parks. Sure would like to have that in the city of Cerritos, think it would help out a lot. They drove a black bicycle, black pants , white shirt with a black tie and then had a helmet on. Every one of them had a cellphone, report to LAPD, if they saw issues in the city of La Palma.
Sure wish city of Cerritos would get a private Patrol or some Patrol on Cycles, it sure does help. We cannot afford another police car, that’s another million dollars a year per police car.
LASD said once they respond to a crime, usually takes a couple of days for it to auto-populate onto the computer. They’re newer rules state that the input the sheriff’s give their office, cannot immediately be auto-populated into the community, it first has to be run through the central office for accuracy and then the central office release it. This can take up to a couple of days. It does not help us out at all, cuz if crime is reported and they respond, the general neighborhood or community may not hear about it for a couple of days later. Also our sheriff’s department does not work with: Long Beach, Los Alamitos, La Palma, Cypress, Downey, Buena Park, they all use police departments and police departments don’t interact with the Sheriff’s Department.
This is why all of LA County Sheriff’s Department say a neighborhood watch has to be communicating with in the neighborhood multiple times a day, because crime when it does occur, was seeded a few days prior or a week prior to the actual crime being committed. The sheriff’s told me, they’re only hunt the actual crime; it’s up to us in the neighborhood watch to report pattern’s. The sheriff said they can look at patterns, but they don’t go out there to study patterns, that has to be in the hands of the neighborhood watch.
7/24/2019, my hood had a similar incident, young man was found in a SFR back yard and confronted by the property owner. Then the man went around the front and fled in black Audi. NO CRIME COMMITTED. LASD used helicopter to hunt.
End of June, we had a similar incident, blond many around 30’s, walked in/ out of my hood, tried to get in to the frontage of one home and then fled, via walking away. NO CRIME COMMITTED. Took LASD over 45 min to respond.
Last week, female in black jeep, poss. used a decoy secretary, casing out our hood, but posing as a hooker, using prostitute vagina finger call.
https://www.loscerritosnews.net/2019/07/25/cerritos-resident-uses-shotgun-to-scare-intruder-away/
Guns n Hoses, are you bloody serious?! No one is going to want to pay another fee for some type of service. If there is a neighborhood watch with strong communication; then thefts could possibly decrease. We don’t need another entity patrolling around! The helicopter flys over Cerritos ever blasted 30 minutes.. you can never be completely safe from criminals but Cerritos is already trying pretty darn hard. Community togetherness is key.
TO: Andy American…………….
Lakewood LASD only gives us helicopter from late afternoon to part of the evening, not 24 hrs. !!!Bellflower (BF) and Artesia have dropped out of the Helicopter Sharing, which cost shared is aprox $250K yr & some was subsidized by LACBS.
ONL: Another failure, immigrant property owners to frugal to keep lights on an radios on too.
Cerritos only has 4 LASD cars on patrol at $1M per car/ yrs, totals $18M yr budget. BF has special assigned private security patrol, which is much more cost effective to the annual budget. Other cities are also supplementing security by hiring private patrol 24/7, not only BF. Most of the LASD are in usage about malls and MVA ; so are absent from neighborhood patrols.
Neighbor watch (NW) has been dissolved in 90703, ( 7/25/2019) costing the city $330K yr for one LASD to direct the NW. During this time, NW groups have dwindled in Cerritos by 25%.
Community togetherness is key. Many of the NW have fallen apart, not only in Cerritos, but across the country, diversity population is brain dumb to the NW in/outs, so program fails its intent, plus the city had custom protocol, which many of the NW have failed to perform. Many NW have been sued and then issues on security cams and custodial rites of the film and who pays for the litigation costs? TAXPAYERS ALL PAY FOR LITIGATION!!
Largest NW/90703, was 800 residents, but it has split and shrinking. Very poor captain knew nothing about city and clashed at many Town hall Meetings and CCC Meetings. This captain had one of the worse potty mouths, but grew the attendance, by offering free food and very poor administration skills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy2bZ5tvDq0
BOTTOM LINE: Improved maintenance on homes, cameras, alarms, cars parked in driveway/street and poss. private patrols.