Next to the Gate: ’Tis the season to be particularly mindful of securing our residences and vehicles. Thefts from cars and homes traditionally escalate as the holidays approach.
Just the other day a resident near the Cabrillo gate briefly left the family home without locking it. Upon returning after a relatively short absence, it was evident that the home had been burglarized and a lot of property stolen.
In the past ten years, we have only had few residential break-ins. All of these, as I recall, have occurred near a gate or wall separating the house from the outside streets. After all, the burglars want to get away quick.
Lessons Learned: Residential burglaries almost always occur during daylight hours for two obvious reasons: First, people aren’t home and thieves generally don’t want a confrontation.
Second, if caught, the nighttime burglar will receive a much harsher sentence as required by law.
Also remember to lock your cars and trucks. Thieves realize that the penalties are very lenient for those caught stealing from an unlocked vehicle, but harsher for those that force their way into a secured vehicle. Consequently, they generally don’t break into locked vehicles.
Should you fall victim to a crime, call the OC Sheriff first (911 if it is an emergency). Deputies are trained and empowered to conduct thorough criminal investigations and have police powers to investigate where others can’t. Calling our Securitas patrol officers first only serves to delay the arrival of the trained first responders. On criminal as well as disturbance matters, our Securitas personnel are instructed to ensure that deputies have been summoned and do what they can to get authorized responders to the scene as promptly as possible.
Our contract with Securitas limits their responsibility to parking and traffic control. For the most part, each of the Securitas employees wants to help where possible, but if they go beyond the scope of their contract they subject themselves, their company, and our Association to possible liability. At the Gate: Every month we receive reports of vehicles attempting to enter via the Selva and Cabrillo gates by tailgating another vehicle. The result is that the spikes in the road pop up and the tailgater has one or more flattened tires. To preclude this from happening, we have posted conspicuous signs at each of these gates advising that they are for Residents Only. Others should enter via the Mariner Gate. We have also regularly requested that residents instruct guests or service people to enter via the Mariner Gate. For the most part this has been relatively effective and there has been a steady decrease in flattened tires.
Unfortunately, one of the political candidates who spoke to our community didn’t get the word from any of our residents. According to Casey Tolan, writing in the San Jose Mercury News on October 12, 2018, the politico was a passenger in a vehicle being driven by a volunteer with a reporter in the back seat. They decided to knock on a few voters’ doors when they came upon a locked gate [Selva Gate] at the “exclusive Niguel Shores gated community.” When another car pulled up, the driver “swerved” to tailgate in behind it. “The access bar fell down, smacking the top of their car, and spikes shot up from the entranceway, slicing through the vehicle’s back tires . . . The car slid to a halt on a manicured block looking out over the Pacific — just across the street from a house with a bright blue yard sign [of the candidate] out front. Its owners, . . . were delighted to see the candidate knocking at their gate, and helped him and his team arrange a tow.”
I mention this San Jose article to highlight the need to warn guests, including service people, not to follow GPS and not to tailgate through a “Residents Only” gate, but instead to enter via the Mariner Gate.
—God Bless . . . Tim Murphy
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