In the wake of a surge in Silverdale area car prowls, John Hunter’s GPS device went missing. His family, who recently moved from North Carolina, had heard of an increase in crime in the area.
A neighbor had an SUV stolen right out of their driveway; the son of a nearby teacher they know also had a car taken and completely stripped of all its valuable parts.
Then last November, the crime came to them. “We notified the police the next day and filed a report,” he said of the stolen GPS device.
Hunter, whose family runs a small family business, is not alone in being victimized. Car prowls in Silverdale have jumped from 40 in 2006 to 224 in 2008. But he did something everyone should do: he took action to safeguard his home.
“We were quite upset about this theft and have since placed motion sensor lighting out front,” he wrote me. “Nightly we keep all doors locked including both cars.”
His story — unlike many crime victims — also has a happy ending.
Much to the Hunters’ surprise, the GPS device turned up — in the possession of a 19-year-old car prowler caught in the act.
“The man was found in a stolen car with several items he had taken that evening,” Hunter said. “It is my understanding he was car prowling on a regular basis in the Ridgetop area.”
If you’ve been victimized in the Silverdale area or elsewhere in the county by a car prowler, I’d like to hear from you. Drop a line to jfarley@kitsapsun.com or leave a comment below.
Map courtesy of http://usgwarchives.net/
Just prior to XMAS, We had a car prowler that broke into several cars on our court( Parkway CT, East Bremerton) I think 4 cars where entered including one of mine, Taked where a Laptop, 2 DVD’s, IPOD, I Pod car adapter and a power cord for a car GPS.
One of the software features of iPhone OS 3.0 will be a “Find my Phone” feature where you can use the web to locate the phone via the GPS chip. It is good if it gets stolen or lost.
My car was prowled on the morning of April 8 in Silverdale (Breckenridge Neighborhood as my car sat in my Driveway and in broad daylight at that. The thieves stole my purse, my GPS, my IPOD and connector, my garage door opener (which they also used to open the garage door)my military ID, a Credit card, cash,my bluetooth headset, my Kitsap card and other random personal effects of inconsequential monetary value. My purse was recovered a short time later in the woods of a neighboring apartment complex with some of my personals inside with the absence of my valuables. I am upset that these kids had the audacity to take items that were not theirs and invade my space as if they belonged. Since I also happen to work with a program that deals with juvenile offenders, I hope they make a mistake and I end up coming face to face with them so they can explain their actions to me.I hate feeling violated.
My neighbour’s car has been prowled 3 times. Now she hopes the car won’t be found this time, this one certainly has a bad luck on it..
I’m kinder interested. Perhaps it could be useful on our GPS tracking. Keeping tracks of people driving your car is not a problem after all.
Our car has been broken into twice since we moved into our apartment off ridgetop this past april when my husband’s ship moved into the shipyards in bremerton. The first time they took our gps and cd player. Luckily nothing else of value was in the car at the time. This past Friday it happened again. This time they took EVERYTHING in the car. My husband’s backpack and uniforms, our NEW gps that we bought to replace the last one that was stolen, jumper cables, a half full bottle of radiator fluid, and they even broke the change holder in the console to take two dimes.
it is very use full to every one to track there vehicle in case of theft