Posted August 5th, By Jerry Beech, President of NOCUPP:

There have been a number of recent burglaries and other incidents in the Kessler Park and the Sylvan Avenue corridors in the last two months. Please keep your eye out for suspicious activities and call in any suspicious people to 911 immediately. We need to get these people caught as soon as possible. In at least one incident the suspect rang the front doorbell several times and after not getting an answer, then went into to the fenced back yard and broke in through a rear patio door. The occupant was home at the time and had just had not answered the doorbell, so this could have turned out badly. Fortunately, the burglar ran off after confronting the resident.

Many of these incidents have occurred during the day of work weeks or over the 4^th of July holiday period. If you are home during the work week, please keep an eye out for your neighbor’s home. ??If you see anything suspicious please report it. Keep an eye out for people going door to door or driving slowly through the neighborhood checking out individual houses. Our patrol officers tell us that many of the people selling magazines door to door or offering to paint street numbers on your curb are actually checking out the houses on a block to burglarize at that time or a few days later.?? If you know of an burglary or theft incident that occurs, please always call it into the police so that a record is made of it. Many people don’t call incidents in thinking nothing will happen, which means the police, the North Oak Cliff Police Patrol (NOCUPP), and I don’t know about it until the reported incidents start adding up as they did this last month. Also, it is not uncommon for the same people to come back and target the same house in the future since they are already familiar with it.

I want to emphasize that normally the Kessler area is very safe, but recent incidents have added up to a most of a typical year’s worth of incidents. I suspect we have one or two individuals who are responsible for these incidents and who are continuing to target our area since they have been successful so far.???? Before the end of June, we had only had one reported burglary so far this year in Kessler Park (which happened in January).

Air conditioner and Freon thefts are a recent trend in our area. Thieves steel the AC unit for the metal, or empty the Freon to either resell or get high off of. If you see anyone monkeying with a neighbors AC unit that looks in anyway suspicious, please call 911. Your AC maintenance company can also install anti Freon theft devices on the AC units (the theft of your Freon can cost hundreds of dollars to replace and potentially harm your AC unit) and it is also possible for your alarm company to install 24 hour sensors on your actual AC compressor just like they do on your doors and windows to call the police if your AC unit is tampered with. Another popular trend is steeling flower pots and chairs off of porches. Many chairs and pots are now very expensive, so this is a very easy crime that often goes unreported. In either of these cases theft can be usually be prevented by bolting your chairs or pots to your porch or walkway. If you have a garage or storage shed, PLEASE be sure to check that these are securely locked. Many garages and storage sheds are extremely easy to break into and these are the most common types of incidents in the North Oak Cliff Area. A shame that we have to resort to this, but minor thefts tend to lead eventually to the same people coming back and doing larger thefts in the future.

Please stay extra vigilant for the next several months and report anything suspicious so we can get these people out of our area. ??It is better to make a suspicious person call to 911 then risk you or your neighbor being broken into.?? NOCUPP members get direct access to the NOCUPP patrol officer’s cell phone to report incidents, get assistance, request one of our officers to help review their home security vulnerabilities, or request vacation and constriction watches. If you can, please join NOCUPP and support our patrols.

The North Oak Cliff United Police Patrol is a nonprofit and member run volunteer organization that hires off duty Dallas Police to patrol our neighborhoods, in marked patrol cars that is entirely supported by member contributions. Most of the neighborhood policing in our area is done by the NOCUPP patrol. Members have direct access to the police patrol officers via a dedicated phone number to report incidents and can also receive vacation watches, construction patrols, or advice on improving home security from the patrol officers. For more information please see our website www.NorthOakCliffPatrol.org or feel free to email us at nocpatrol@gmail.com or contact me personally.