Organized crime behind these break-ins.
By Sam Catanzaro
Knock knock? Who’s there? A burglar who wants to break into your house.
‘Knock knock’ burglaries are on the rise in Brentwood and despite their humorous name, these thieves leave their mark. In a ‘knock knock’ burglary, a thief will knock on a door. If somebody answers the door, the thief employs a ruse, pretending to be a salesperson. If nobody answers, they will jump the fence and break into the house through the back door.
“They make entry through your back doorway. They don’t need any special tools for the most part. And then, once they’re inside the house, they take things like guns, money and jewelry. Those are the primary things they’re after,” said Captain Brian Wendling of the Los Angeles Police Department, West LA Division at the latest Brentwood Community Council (BCC) meeting.
According to Captain Wendling, in multiple instances ‘knock knock’ thieves have made off with large safes, rolling them down flights of stairs and onto the street. This type of crime was first reported by the LAPD Southwest Division, which is headquartered around the University of Southern California. The culprits initially were a gang known as the Rolling 60s but now these types of break-ins have now been adopted by criminals throughout California.
“This is organized crime. It’s not designed to be violent. It’s designed to get you property from your house and into their house.” Wendling said. “This trend now is expanded. It’s gone all the way to the Bay Area, and down to the Mexican border. So it’s not just L.A. that’s feeling it.”
Wendling said that the LAPD West LA Division is putting time and resources into combatting these criminals, but at the end of the day, the Department is still playing catchup.
“We have lots of officers dedicated,” Wendling said. “We have tricks of the trade that we’re doing, but we’re always playing catch up. It’s a very reactive sport that we play, and they’re always ahead, because we change our tactics, then they figure something out.”
No matter how smart these criminals are, however, ‘knock knock’ burglars often engage in suspicious activity prior to breaking in while scoping out the neighborhood. Captain Wendling says to keep an eye out for shady activity and to install security cameras to pick up either the face of the thieves or their license plates.
“Your security cameras, your systems that you have, anything that you can get that faces up and down the street where you live is super helpful, and it’s not super obvious,” Captain Wendling said.
Specifically, Captain Wendling says to be wary of cars with tinted windows and paper dealer plates that are unfamiliar to the neighborhood and to report any suspicious activity by calling the LAPD West Division at 310-444-0702 and asking for Detective Davis.
Because these criminals make off with a lot of valuables, they create a fair amount of anxiety in communities but according to Captain Wendling, overall crime in Brentwood is down from last year.
“The good news is there is not an uptick in burglary in Brentwood. We’re actually down this year as compared to last year,” Captain Wendling said. “I think what happened is we’ve had a few crimes, and some of them were a little bit more egregious and heinous than what we were used to, and that’s got everybody feeling uneasy at home, and I get that because I feel the same way when it happens in my neighborhood.“
