My daughter arrived from Cleveland this morning, I made it to the airport on time, despite Phoenix’s rush hour attempt to make it not happen, picked Daughter #2 up, came home and grabbed the dog and headed over to Dufffeeland Dog Park. Went in, Dog did his duty quickly, we came back to the car after maybe 10 minutes, Daughter opened the car and said, “I left my purse on the floor and it is gone.” Sure enough. Within maybe 20 minutes credit cards were called and two had been used, both at Walmart, one was declined for $1,000 and the other “worked” for $500. You don’t need to hear the rest of the sordid story but be advised that it can happen that fast. Oh, yes, I had not locked my car at Duffeeland.
That sucks. The interesting thing is Duffeeland isn't a place with a lot of walk by traffic. Hate to think it would be someone using the park. Las year at the candidates forum and the flyers were left on the cars at Marinette, the first question asked was; "aren't there camera's and video feed available?" Of course the answer was no. Which prompted the follow-up, why not? Coming up now closely on a year, at the next board meeting is a proposal for "video surveillance." It will be interesting to see what it looks like. We are long past the day when protecting our amenities and more importantly our members with camera's on the grounds is the norm. Nice to think bad things can't and don't happen in Sun City, but like everywhere they do. Camera's don't stop everything, they simply minimize the risk.
We went to the Walmart that the cards had been used at and went through the trash cans in the parking lot in case the purse had been dumped there. Ever do that? And yes, Walmart does have survalience tapes, no we can't see them, only the police can do that. Think they will? Think I will get a call asking me to come in and look and see if I identify the perps? Stay tuned.
Well this was not a walk-by, given that they spent, or tried to spend $1500 in Peoria 20 minutes later. There was a car somewhere close by.
Not the first time Sun City parking areas have been singled out, won't be the last. Crimes of opportunity. The whole idea of camera's is to work as a deterrent. Catching them is nice, preventing them is better.
