The Police Impressed Me!

About two weeks ago, we pulled up to the store and found one of the front windows shattered. Obviously, we had experienced a break-in!We were concerned that the intruder might still be inside, so we waited until the police arrived.

With guns at the ready, they entered and declared the premises secure.The burglar had CRAWLED under the motion detectors to the cash box, pried it open, took our petty cash, and crawled back out. What was stolen in cash was FAR LESS than the cost to replace the big plate glass window.

We've experienced break-ins before, and have never had any of the intrusions resolved. So, we were less than excited when the CSI crew (yes, there really is a CSI group in Charlotte) arrived, dusted the box for prints, pulled some blood drops for analysis, and left a half-hour later.

Yesterday, a plain clothes officer arrived with a complaint form for me to sign. He had a big grin on his face. "We caught her," he said.

"Her?" I asked.

He nodded. "We had three other break-ins that night -- all in your area. I thought they might have been done by the same person -- and that person might be out on parole with an ankle bracelet. So I checked the electronic records, and found that one of the bracelets had been near EACH of the four break-ins at about the right time. And that bracelet was issued to a lady parolee with a long history of drug abuse and thefts to support her habit"

"I didn't know that the tracking was so precise," I prompted.

He nodded again. "With this data, at the very least, the lady was in violation of her home-release conditions. So we visited her and explained the evidence that we had obtained -- including the blood whose DNA would certainly link her to the Flower Hut theft. She confessed to all four burglaries, we arrested her, and I suspect that she'll be away for a long time."

I shook his hand. "I AM impressed," I said.

And I still am.