Among other items reported by the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, crime didn’t take any time off during the Thanksgiving weekend.
The Sheriff’s Office reported there was a rash of burglaries along the Bitner Frontage Road sometime over the holiday weekend, mostly of construction equipment.
Deputies reported that a suspect or suspects used cutting tools to hit three construction sites. At one spot, about $10,000 worth of hand tools were stolen out of a construction trailer. At another spot, electrical equipment and copper wire were stolen from a trailer, again valued at about $10,000. And a padlock was broken on a storage locker, resulting in the theft of a $1000 chop saw.
Finally, a vehicle at the Canyon Creek Apartments was hit. It was parked with the garage door left open. A window was broken and a suspect stole a backpack with ski equipment.
Deputies also reported activity on Black Friday at the Outlet Mall. A male suspect stole twelve coats from a store at about 1:45 p.m., jumped into a car and fled.
In other activity, deputies, just before Thanksgiving, responded to three related cases in the Silver Springs area, of packages being stolen off front porches. One of the victims had a doorbell camera that got video of a male suspect, but the thief was wearing a hat and face mask, making it difficult to get a description.
Another victim found an opened Amazon box on her porch, containing the item that had been stolen from one of the other victims. Deputies circulated in the area, and were able to recover two out of the three packages.
Sheriff’s Lt. Andrew Wright said they usually see a spike in this kind of thievery during the holidays—but especially this year, with more people ordering merchandise online.
“But this year I think our residents need to be a lot more cautious about knowing when their packages are going to arrive, doing their best to retrieve those as quickly as possible if they’re not going to be home, have a neighbor or a friend swing by and pick those up. A large portion of people have video doorbells nowadays. And so it’s easy for someone to know if a package has been dropped off by a parcel company. And so if they can do their part, do their best to retrieve those packages or have someone help them get those off their front porch as soon as possible, that’s always helpful.”
Finally, two fraud cases were reported to the Sheriff’s Office. A 57-year-old Silver Creek man said he saw a KSL classified advertising puppies for sale. The suspect he contacted asked for a $350 deposit, and then texted an address where the puppies could be seen. But when the complainant went to the address, in the Sun Peak neighborhood, the homeowner had no puppies and was completely unaware their address had been used.
Also, a 26-year-old Jeremy Ranch woman said she was contacted by a suspect, using the name of an actual officer with the Sheriff’s department, who said a warrant had been issued for her and she needed to send money. The complainant wired $450 from her bank account
