Warm weather brings crime alert

Blue Security Marketing Manager Darren Lategan has urged residents to remain security conscious even as warmer temperatures raise the temptation to leave windows and doors open and alarms not activated while entertaining at home.
“Residents are urged especially at this time of year and leading up to the festive season, when criminals are usually extensively on the prowl, to be vigilant and adopt a security conscious lifestyle.”
“Tempting as it may be to leave windows and doors open on a warm day statistics show that it can take just one slip up for criminals to gain entry and commit a robbery,” Lategan said.
“If you are at home entertaining guests make sure that only the nearest door from the entertainment area to the house is open and that guests or children have not forgotten to close the other exit points, like the back door, front door and driveway gate,” Lategan said.
Lategan advised residents to set driveway gates to close automatically after being opened. “Nothing says ‘easy target’ to criminals like a wide open gate with several cars parked in the driveway,” Lategan said.
Lategan offered this advice following several armed robberies across Durban in recent weeks with two incidents in the Durban North Area last week.
In the first incident a gang of five armed men entered a property in Julian Road in Avoca at 7.30pm and held up the owner before fleeing with laptops, cellphones and jewellery.
And in Mogul Road in Effingham Heights three armed men held up a domestic worker and a resident and robbed them of two safes containing jewellery, cellphones and house keys.
However, Lategan added that one of the company’s quick thinking armed reaction officers had managed to arrest an alleged thief on a property in North Coast Road and recover stolen goods. “The reaction officer spotted a suspect on site at 10.30pm and immediately gave chase and apprehended him. He recovered a battery and spanner that the alleged thief had stolen from a vehicle parked on the premises,” Lategan said.
“This is the second arrest by one of our officers in the area the past few weeks which sends out the strong message that criminals will not be tolerated on our patrol and that we will not hesitate to apprehend suspects and hand them over to the police for further investigation,” Lategan said.
Several incidents of housebreaking and theft were also reported to the company in the area including in The Boulevard in Umhlanga; Allamanda Road in Glenhills; Sandra Place in Redhill; Margaret Maytom Drive and Northway in Durban North and Hydrangea Place in Glenhills. “Criminals fled with items ranging from bicycles, an iPad, digital cameras, a sound system, an electric urn and a laptop charger to a file from a business premises. A resident walked in on a housebreaker who fled leaving behind bags he had packed with tools in the garage,” Lategan said.
Additional incidents ranging from attempted housebreaking and trespassing to vandalism were also reported in Chelsea Drive; Clarendon Road, and Willowfield Crescent.