New Castle officials see rise in burglaries

By Jeanne Starmack

Watch your own property, and look out for your neighbors’, police say.

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — Warm weather is here, so head to the park and enjoy it. Just make sure to lock your doors and windows before you go.

Spring’s in full bloom, but there’s a drawback to this time of year — especially for city dwellers. The number of burglaries tends to rise.

“Warm weather sparks an increase in [burglary] activity,” said police Chief Tom Sansone.

For Marianne Pia of Adams Street, that assertion hits home. Her house was burglarized April 10 while she was at a bingo game. She’d left her home at 6 p.m. and returned at 10 p.m. to find her back door halfway open.

“I said, ‘Whoa, something’s wrong,’” she recalled.

When she entered her house, she saw a side door open and pictures knocked off her grandmother’s cedar chest in the dining room.

She phoned her ex-husband and her daughter. When they arrived, they went upstairs. In Pia’s bedroom, they found a ransacked jewelry box and “papers everywhere.”

Her 19-year-old daughter Julianne’s bedroom had been ransacked as well. Missing from the bedrooms were jewelry and a bottle of perfume.

“It’s just upsetting,” Pia said. “They came in my house — just knowing they were going through my house.”

In New Castle, crime report statistics show a rise from 28 burglaries or attempted burglaries in January to 55 in April.

Data also shows that the number has climbed to 54 more burglaries this year over 2007. The comparison is 93 to 147 in the first four months.

It’s part of city life, Sansone said.

Where houses are crowded together and people are used to seeing strangers walking around, it’s just easier for burglars to do their work, he said.

He also said he thinks that a rise in the last few years in the value of copper has to do with why there’s so many more break-ins.

Burglars are going after the copper plumbing in houses, especially vacant ones.

Even so, that doesn’t mean your TV is safe because a burglar mainly wants your pipes. One April break-in report noted that pipes were stolen, but the burglar also thought to grab some jewelry before he left.

They usually don’t care what it takes to rip out those pipes, either. Furnaces have been damaged. In one case, a house that was being remodeled sustained extensive water damage after a pipe was yanked out.

No part of the city is immune. “It seems like it’s everywhere. It seems to be on all sides of town,” Sansone said.

Sansone said police do extra patrols after burglaries, and he said he thinks his department does a good job despite being understaffed. A state study, he said, shows his department of 35 is understaffed by 10 compared with cities of similar size.

Pia said she sees police cruising now on Adams — which, she said, is a nice street with well-kept homes. The police presence makes her feel better, she said.

Sansone said detectives have made arrests on three burglaries in March and one in April. He said detectives are making progress in other cases. “We have a couple people in mind,” he added.

Often, he said, it’s the same “four or five people” who are responsible for going on a little crime spree, he said. “We’ll get somebody who will admit to doing eight burglaries.”

Often, burglars steal because of a drug problem, he said.

Sansone said that besides making sure your property is locked up, it might help to have a spotlight or other lighting outside.

He also said that, with houses being so close, it pays to be a nosy neighbor.

If you see something or someone and you’re suspicious, call 911, he said. “If it’s nothing, so what,” he added.

starmack@vindy.com