A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

[Number Of The Priest]

Today was my first little run-in with crime, or at least what we think was crime. I'll tell the story, accompanied with pictures...

This morning, my family noticed that our garden solar lights were gone. We also noticed a flag right next to the crime scene. We presumed it was a calling card by the thieves.



My mom went out to talk to some neighbors who also noticed flags that suddenly popped up overnight. I went out to snap pictures of the sudden damage/thefts I found that were accompanied by strange flags.

These next two photos actually go together, but the flag was strangely about 15 or 20 feet away from the actual damaged birdbath. See:





I walked around the neighborhood, and found this one. What the heck was it doing sticking out of a yard waste bag? [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]



One on a street corner, but no evidence of vandalism or theft that I could see...



And then I found this next flag. It differed from the rest in that it was green, not orange, and it had "LOOSE SOIL" written on it. [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] It starts to puzzle me.

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Post number 2 because I exceeded the number of images in the last post...

Walking around some more, I see more flags:



This one says "PLEASE KEEP OFF"... [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]



Another weird green flag...



And another flag that doesn't indicate vandalism/theft...



A neighbor also got one of their solar lights stolen... the thieves didn't bother stealing the other one, apparently... [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Post number 3...

This lawn was RIDDLED with friggin' flags... I would have expected the damn HOUSE ITSELF including the foundation to be gone, but alas, everything looked fine...



And their garden was also riddled with strange flags:



Soooo, what the hell gives? I talked to some people around the neighborhood. They said that their flags also appeared overnight, and the ones who had flags at the edge of the lawn right by the curb/road suspected that the flags were put up by the city to mark the water pipe lines or something. I said BULLCRAP. You come around to my street and see the theft and vandalism marked by a suspicious flag RIGHT AT THE CRIME SCENE with flags NOT at the curb/road.

We're thinking the flags are a "calling card" left behind by the bastards who did this to our quiet little neighborhood, and I'm reporting this to the municipal police. It smells too fishy to be the city marking the water lines. Crime IS up in my city lately, and the accused are often youth gangs from other areas of town coming into the suburbs to terrorize our neighborhood. I know this isn't real "TERROR" but you never know how much this could escalate. Our city counsellor even went as far as to describe punks like this as "non-whites coming into [the neighborhood] to terrorize us". She meant no racist connotations by saying this, yet she received a LOT of flak for it. Sad.

Anyways, let me know your thoughts on this incident.

[ApeDosMil]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

looks like a organized crime project. i would tear them down, or put them around the neighborhood jacksass [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Miffy rules]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Damn this is creeeeeepy. [img]graemlins/brow.gif[/img] It looks like an organized crime, but what kind of criminal will be such an attention whore to put around these flags? Besides, stealing solar light? [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

One thing I forgot to add was that the neighbors found a whole crapload of those little flags stuffed into the mailbox on the street corner. [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

[Miffy rules]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Is there a monitor or something like that in the neighborhood that happened to video-taped what was going on?

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Seriously!!!! I would have thought the criminals would have just stolen the lights and damaged the property without leaving weird flags all over the place. I presume I could wear rubber gloves (borrowed from my lab at work, yay!! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ) and take those flags and put them in a plastic bag to give to the police and see if they can check for fingerprints.

[Brad]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Fuggin' Aliens...... [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Our streets don't have CCTV cameras... no Big Brother Is Watching You kind of thing here...

[Miffy rules]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Maybe the flag is just some kind of scientific research thing, like those geology field research, and this unfortunately bumped in with some neighborhood theft, and these 2 seperate things got mixed together. [img]graemlins/idea2.gif[/img] Just a thought. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Awfully strange coincidence for the flags to appear AND the damage/theft to appear all in the same night. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Oh oh!!!! I just remembered something else. I noticed posters pinned up on lamp posts advertising an upcoming garage sale. Perhaps they stole our stuff and want to sell it. [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[sevser]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

NOTP I think you have been watching too much Matlock! [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/poke.gif[/img]

I'll bet it some highschool kids trying fuck with ya. It is grad time isn't it? A couple kids laughing their asses off knowing a whole bunch of suburbians are... [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img]

I'll bet there is a high school with a bunch of yard lamps all over the lawn.

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Well, the high school IS where a lot of kids from other areas like to vandalize... broken windows, defaced walls, etc. People don't like to buy houses around that area of the neighborhood any more.

I'll have to make a trip to the high school tomorrow, although it's not very close to my house, so I don't expect to see flags there like the flags around my block in my photos.

I'll bet there is a high school with a bunch of yard lamps all over the lawn.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">[img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] I wanna see that. [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Black Mariah]

Re: A SERIOUS topic from me for once... neighborhood crime...

Looks to me like a bunch of bored people found a stash of city marker flags and ran around messing with shit. I wouldn't doubt that you'll see your shit return soon. [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]