Police Union Says Thieves Targeting Patrol Cruisers
Gazette.Net
07/28/03
Recent reported break-ins of county police vehicles should be expected with the high rate of thefts from autos in the county, contend official with the Prince George’s County Fraternal Order of Police.
Earlier this month, unknown suspects broke into two police cruisers in Lanham – one a fully equipped police car, the other unmarked – and stole one police-issue shotgun, two bulletproof vests, two protective helmets and other pieces of equipment.
Both cars were broken into in Lanham apartment complexes, where officers had parked them.
"I don’t think there’s an epidemic of our cars being broken into," said Percel Alston, Vice President of the Fraternal Order of Police 89 in Upper Marlboro. "The police department is just a microcosm of the community and the same is going to happen to police cars as residents’ vehicles."
Police are investigating why the officer left the shotgun in his car. Investigators have yet to recover any of the equipment or find the suspects.
Alston said officers are required to carry more non-lethal weaponry. While he calls the weaponry an important innovation, safekeeping the equipment has become cumbersome.
"It becomes quite a burden to remove all that equipment [from your car] at the end of the day," Alston said.
Moreover, he said, officers do not have secure cases at home in which to store the equipment issued from the department.
"That’s another concern," Alston said.
An anonymous county police officer who sent an e-mail to The Gazette said much the same.
"The officers are increasingly being required to carry more or less, ‘lethal technology’ in their cars… and nowhere to secure these thing," the officer wrote. "I have two small children in my home and bring home a handgun that has to be locked in a small safe each day.
"I have no place to lock away such large weapons as the new FN303 rifle or a pepper ball gun. I’m certainly not going to bring them into my house unsecured and endanger my kids."
The Prince George’s Police Department did not respond to a request from The Gazette for information on the number of thefts from police cars and what was stolen in the last year.
Capt. Andrew Ellis, spokesman for the department, said police do not track cruiser break-ins separately from regular car break-ins.
The anonymous officer, however, said in an e-mail that the department does, indeed, track break-ins of police cruisers.
"[Ellis] and the chiefs [sic] officers are well aware of the epidemic of cruisers being broken into in this county. Most of them are burglarized while they sit unattended at firehouses or the county equestrian center," the officer wrote.
Lt. Stanley Johnson, spokesman for the Maryland-National Capital Park Police, said there were no reports of county police cruiser break-ins at the Prince George’s Equestrian Center this year or in 2002.
"If they have it, they haven’t reported it to us," Johnson said.
The department did return phone calls.