Lithonia residents say food bandit slides under police radar
- 12/2/10
- Categorized in: DeKalb News
After her home was burglarized three times in one day Misty Chambliss said she is apprehensive about returning there – or purchasing groceries.
“He went through the pantry, refrigerator and cabinets. He started to cook and left my oven up really high,” Chambliss said of the person who committed the Nov. 19 burglaries that occurred while she worked the late shift at her job.
“He’s ripped my alarm off the wall more than once, ruined the front door locks and kicked the back door in. I won’t come back here until my door is fixed and this is figured out,” she added.
In the past month residents in the Avalon on Hillandale subdivision have reported to DeKalb County Police repeated incidents of burglary – someone stealing no property other than food items, including jerk chicken, chocolate cake and hot sauce.
Chambliss said she called WSB-TV and other media outlets when she grew tired of what she calls poor police response time and investigative work.
“I’ve been told they are short staffed and have limited time to spend on one case, but my house hasn’t been the only one hit,” Chambliss said.
“It happened to the woman right across the street, too,” she added.
The woman, who did not want to be identified, said her home was burglarized several times as well, but if it happens again it would be the burglar’s last time.
“The first day I returned to work from maternity leave he hit us and it happened again a few weeks after that,” the woman said.
“It’s mentally draining. He broke our back door off the hinges. It’s apparently someone who is watching us and has timed perfectly how long it takes the police to come. Whoever it is needs to know this is private property and if it happens again he may get killed,” she added.
Georgia law allows homeowners to use deadly force to protect themselves and their property, but residents aren’t looking forward to that day.
“I wish the police would take this more seriously. Nobody has been physically harmed yet and nobody wants to hurt this person, but who knows what will happen,” Chambliss said.
Residents said the burglaries came as the neighborhood has changed – allowing more renters and transient people to live there.
“I’ve been living here 10 years and never before have I seen this many vacant houses. There is one next door to me and two across the street. Some people have even seen him going into one of them,” Chambliss said of the recently foreclosed homes in her neighborhood.
“It’s not safe anymore. I know one woman who can’t get insurance on her house because of all the burglaries. It’s just crazy. I used to get seven hours of sleep, but lately I can only manage about three.”
Residents said because they cannot rely on police they are developing a neighborhood watch system.
If the suspect should be considered dangerous is unknown. DeKalb police have not responded to calls made by the Champion.
My sister's home was burglarized by the same person a month ago. He hits each person's house one by one. He times them on when they leave.
And even though several residents have all called Dekalb police to do something about it, they have not made an effort to step up.
It took a woman to call an Atlanta news station just for the police chief to come out and actually make an effort to come to the neighborhood and help one woman out of several people that have been hit by this person.
I'm upset because my nephew was in the house when the burglar broke in. He could've been harmed if that burglar was armed. I'm really glad that the guy ran away instead, but what if he didn't?
The police are suppose to prevent harm form happening to people, not wait until after the crime is done to do something about it. Is it worth someone's life to take action to protect someone else even if you could've prevented an incident from happening in the first place?
Why would you wait until it's too late??