Stealing Spree

Jack Akkerman never expected to find a man standing in his dining room.

Akkerman had just returned home for a short while at about 2:30 p.m. Monday, April 13, when he found a dark car in his driveway.

There was a woman with a dog, waiting in the car. There was also a man, who Akkerman clearly saw walk into his rural Austin home from an unlocked door.

“He went through the living room door, which is never open,” he said. “I don’t know why it was unlocked that day.”

The woman told him they were looking for a neighbor to buy pigeons. He, understandably, was a little upset.

He confronted the would-be burglar in his dining room, adjacent to the living room. Akkerman knew the man probably had enough time to make a sweep of his bedroom, but he didn’t know the burglar would get away with several pieces of his wife’s jewelry.

At the time, all Akkerman wanted was to get the man out of his house. He listened to the burglar’s poor excuse — “Bill was the name he threw at me. He didn’t even really think about another excuse,” Akkerman said — before he escorted the burglar out of his home and called the police.

Akkerman hasn’t been the only victim of burglary in recent times. Crime always increases during warmer months, and this year is no exception.

The Austin Police Department doesn’t have burglary data from this year, but Austinites on average annually reported about 157 burglaries over the past five years. In 2014, Austin had about 159 burglaries.

Yet police are seeing more than just the average home or car break-in.

Area residents have experienced an increase in burglaries where the homeowners are asleep or otherwise engaged inside their house.

“We’re seeing more of those occupied ones than perhaps we’ve seen in the past,” Police Capt. Dave McKichan said.

What’s more, burglaries are more common in unlocked homes and cars, where it’s easier to steal things.

That’s what happened to Julie Skinness. Her video surveillance caught a burglar scoping out cars near her home at the 1800 block of Eighth Avenue Southwest at 3 a.m. on July 1. The burglar found her daughter’s brand-new car unlocked, due to a defective lock hinge.

Skinness and her daughter thought the car was locked.

The burglar made off with a phone case, a wallet and a few other things. Skinness has reported the burglary to police and shared her surveillance footage online. She still wants justice, even if the suspect didn’t take much.

“My biggest fear is, there’s a little old lady down the road; he got in her garage,” Skinness said. “She’s terrified now.”

That’s why the best way to prevent such burglaries is to keep doors locked, according to McKichan.

“In this day and age, people need to keep their doors locked,” he said.

Otherwise, burglaries will continue to steal from homes where residents are asleep, like the thieves who made off with three cell phones and two laptops on Friday from the 1400 block of Eighth Avenue Northeast. Or the burglars who stole an Xbox One, a yellow purse, a pair of men’s pants, a wallet, and a set of car keys from a home at the 500 block of Second Avenue Southwest on May 22.

Businesses are even affected. About $70,000 worth of bull semen was stolen from an unlocked shed on a farm in rural LeRoy in early April.

“If you don’t lock your doors, you’re at a greater risk,” McKichan said. “It’s the best safety thing you can do.”