Thieves...Thwarted! A Friendly Reminder To Be Alert & Aware

[keithb7]

Last night a  neighbor posted in our community Facebook group about black Dodge truck cruising the neighborhood. Someone tried to steal a jerry can of gas from their driveway. They warned us all to be aware and on the look out.

 

About an hour later at 10 PM a truck pulled into our drive way. This never happens. We have a private driveway in a more rural type neighborhood. Ya'll have likely seen it in my YT videos. I saw the headlights in my driveway from my living room window. I got up and looked out the window. The truck pulled a U-turn and drove away again. Interesting... I check my security camera recordings. Truck was driving up the road and pulled into my driveway with a purpose. Confident, appearing to belong there. Front license plate was removed.  I got a decent look, it was a black Dodge pick up truck. I went out, fired up my car and toured the neighborhood to see if I could find the truck again. Hopefully to get a visual on the rear license plate.  No luck. They must have immediately headed down the hill and out of our neighborhood.

 

This was definitely abnormal activity around here. I called it in to the police. Closed the steel gate in our driveway, then parked my car across the driveway sideways.  Just incase they decided to come back at 3 AM.

 

Next day (today) I went out to fire up my ATV for snow removal. I found a cheap vehicle tow/recovery strap wrapped around my front snow blade. Someone had it wrapped up ready to tow my ATV away, stealing it. I was convinced it was the black Dodge truck from last night that arrived at 10PM. Likely to winch my ATV up into the back of their truck.  Yet luckily we were home, saw them, and they made the quick exit out of my driveway.

 

Back to the security camera recordings we went. When did the tow strap get placed on my ATV?  We viewed all the recorded footage.

 

The thieves must have scouted the neighborhood earlier. They likely saw my ATV. The camera reveled that at 8:30 PM last night while we had family over for dinner, a black Dodge truck stopped on the road in front of our home. Someone got out of the truck. The person hugged trees and a surrounding car, to avoid detection. They attached the tow strap to my ATV. Then got back in their truck and drove away. We were all at the back side of our house at the dinner table. Socializing and laughing. Unaware. The culprit came back an hour and a half later to steal my ATV. We ruined those plans.

 

Stay sharp folks!

 

For your viewing pleasure my camera go this last night:

 

Then this is what I found this morning:

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2022 by keithb7

[greg g]

I'd be chaining the atv to the trailer, putting up security lights and cleaning up my shot gun.  Looks like a Dakota pick up.  Running around with no front tags, likely up to no good.  Don't care much for thieves.  Hope somebody grabs the tag number.

[Eneto-55]

Well, at least you got what looks to be a decent tow strap out of their little escapade.....

[Kilgore47]

The tow strap is probably stolen.  Hope you find them

[keithb7]

We have different gun laws and charter of rights here in Canada. We will end up charged, and may go to jail if we protect our property or possessions here by using or showing a gun. Guns are be to be locked up and stored away. Ammo must be locked up and stored in a different place. Its designed so that way so that we cannot quickly grab a gun and deal with a thief, murderer, or rapist that might enter our home at night.  

 

It is frustrating when thieves lurk our neighborhoods. A person has to be careful and tricky to catch them. If thieves are caught and charged, they can and sometimes do come back later and burn your house down.  With our system here you are better off here to just be diligent and make it hard for them to steal anything. 

Edited December 31, 2022 by keithb7

[Plymouthy Adams]

time for a new system.......?

[iowa51]

2 Years ago my cousin's had a car trailer stolen from from their farm shop, surveillance video showed a white Ford pickup with no plates.  2 weeks later a friend of my son had theirs stolen from my shop where he had it parked, a few miles from my cousin's shop. Neighbor said it was a white Ford pickup, didn't think anything of it as various vehicles come and go from my shop. Sheriff said ours was the 4th trailer reported stolen in the last month, 3 were directly tied to a white Ford pickup, the other had no witnesses.

 

If boobytrapping was legal many of these thefts would not have happened.

[keithb7]

3 hours ago, Plymouthy Adams said:

time for a new system.......?

This is the new system that the majority of next generation voters want.  ?

[Ralph D25cpe]

There are still a few of us old folks...

 

[Ulu]

We live in a lucky situation where we have dogs, and everybody on all sides of us, behind us, and across the street all have dogs.

 

Nobody can drive into my dead end street without setting off a chorus of terriers, hounds and shepherds. UPS guys do not have to ring the bell. I feel pretty safe here without having to take any extraordinary measures.

 

But before we moved to this neighborhood we had some theiving neighbors living next-door to us. They were drug dealers and welfare cheats, and we had various things go missing unexplained. Otherwise it was a pretty quiet neighborhood. The streets didn’t run through and we didn’t get much traffic.

 

These neighbors claimed that we trained our dogs to hate them and bark at them. (Meanwhile they kept a nasty pitbull in their backyard and they very rarely took care of him.) Anyhow this lady comes over drunk one day and told me that I trained my dogs to hate her because I was a racist. WTF I guess my dogs barked at her.

 

I didn’t know how to tell this woman that my dogs didn’t need any training to hate her. (She was stinky, drunken and obnoxious.)

 

Instead I told her that my dogs didn’t bark because they hated her. They barked because they liked her, and they wanted to play, and she was welcome to come over and play with them anytime. 

 

Her head spun around a couple times while she tried to figure out what I meant, and then she stuck her nose in the air and huffed off.

 

I feel sorry to this day, for the people I sold my old house to. In California you are required to disclose any defect in the house before you sell it, but there’s nothing on the paperwork where you have to disclose that the neighbors are disgusting violent drunken drug peddling dog abusers.

 

Imagine if you had to tell people that!

 

 

Edited January 1, 2023 by Ulu

[Dan Hiebert]

Thieves are simply scumbags using up perfectly good air that good people may need.  

[chris 48 P15]

if not yet installed motion lights and noise makers would be a good thing as far as putting it on a trailer you might lose two toys

i have dogs i live in suburbs and its noticed if you drive around

some citizens in ny state are trying to change some of the gun laws

 

i have seen big i beam set ups in front of some garages the beam is driven into ground and locked 

has to be removed to use garage one man operation but still looks like pain in the ass to use

whatever it takes 

 

[Los_Control]

I have dogs. Daisy would lick you to death, Penny she would hurt you really really bad ... Just saying Dogs have their own personality & do their own thing.

My dogs have free use of the yard during the day .... If a thief was casing the area for a late night visit  they would skip my house.

Just knowing the dogs are on the property. .... Look for a easier target.

 

Same time the 100 pound dogs are inside sleeping on my bed when the thief's might enter my property. .... They do not know my dogs are locked in for the night & my garage is unlocked.

Then again this is Texas, we shoot intruders. ... I would prefer my dogs to sleep while I took care of the intruders.

Alas, the dogs love to have fun also.

[chris 48 P15]

gun laws are different in ny 

 dogs make noise lets me know and intruders know this may not be the place to rob

after that will be dealt with accordingly

 

 

[ggdad1951]

Around here, even with pictures and video evidence cops do little..."that's what insurance is for" ...is pretty much the line one gets.  By me tho lots of people target shoot....so not much nefarious goes on.

[Dan Hiebert]

You still have to be careful with dogs - especially in NY and places with similar ideology.  Keep in mind this noted trend is to give criminals more rights than law abiding citizens.  Do not put up "Beware of Dog" signs, the State of NY's court system, for one, considers that to be acknowledging that you are aware your dog(s) is(are) dangerous, and you knew beforehand that Fido would shred that burglar.  Heck, NY courts even consider you to premeditate harming burglars just by simply owning certain breeds of dogs.  So the fact that Joe or Jane Criminal was in your house becomes irrelevant, and you become the criminal for knowingly inflicting harm to a misunderstood segment of society that is only trying to better its lot in life.  If you feel compelled to put up a sign, use those silhouette signs just showing that you have dogs, but not indicating their demeanor.  I prefer the option of having your dogs' presence known to your neighborhood.  As a couple of you noted, thieves will more than likely bypass property known to have dogs.  The "known to practice firearms proficiency" option is also a good one. 

[Plymouthy Adams]

some folks place range data.....at a tree or shrub someone can hide behind...posting of a placard stating 63 yard, unobstructed flight path.  Of course most of that is in jest but the Joe/Jane criminal rights are protected more than the rights of Joe/Jane property owner/tax payer.  My lights were triggered about 3:20 and I was immediately outside to investigate...nothing...so figured an animals cross the area.  At light, as I was working very early in the shop, looked out for a weather check and got my rifle...an armadillo was doing the dillo thing of digging holes...and as Jerry Clower would say, and the lord called him home. 

[SteveR]

When living in Minnesota, Born and bred, I owned 10 firearms from shotguns to muzzle loaders to pistols to WW1 rifles. Never did I use them for self defense.

Here in England with the goofy gun laws they have I gave up my guns before we moved. Now we have a German Shepard called Ellie and her aggressive bark is enough to ward of anyone who even walks by our house.