Anatomy of a Residential Burglary Caught on a security Camera System

Westchester, CA—In this quiet West L.A. neighborhood three amateurish, hoodie and glove wearing African-American burglars invaded a home. 

This is crime particularly dangerous because you will see in the video below that at least one of the thugs is armed with a black semi-automatic handgun.  

The burglars are using backpacks and their pockets to conceal the items that they are stealing. They got away with $20,000.00 in jewelry in this January 20th crime. 

They cut the power lines to disable the home alarm and but were unable to defeat the home security and video system.  Remember for the most part the thugs were looking downward. 

Well-lit rooms help with better camera resolution.  Keeping drapes open will help.  Most every residential burglary is a daytime operation.

The victims are usually at work.  Your video security system should have its own power supply and the ability to send e-mail or text messages.  You should use only covert cameras inside and find a good hiding place for the recording deck.  Otherwise they will take those too!

Hopefully a pet resistant motion detector would send you a text message that would cause you to remotely view the crime.  You could then call the police.

This video gives me good ideas for better camera placement.  Shooting from above seems logical but having a camera or two shooting from below would have captured their faces.

There is no chance of recovering fingerprints or DNA here.  The best hope is for a unique sneaker print or two to be recovered. 

Last but not least there are lots of wonderful dogs waiting for homes at your local animal shelter.  Perhaps it’s time to bring one to your home.  I bet some serious barking might have caused these creeps to victimize some other home.  Every home should have a K-9 pal.  

Realistically if these burglars were discovered and the police were called the likelihood that they would arrive in time to catch this thugs is slim to none.

This is what a burglary looks like.  Needless to say if you recognize this trio the LAPD would like to hear from you!