We’re hopeful that someday, somehow, the Dallas Police Department will figure out a way to once again share their incident reports with the public. Until then, we bring you this story of a Highland Park crime that briefly involved officers from Dallas.
At 5 a.m. on Aug. 5, an alarm sounded from an apartment above a detached garage in the 3700 block of Maplewood Avenue. The homeowner assumed the wind had set if off, but she called police a few minutes later when a second alarm sounded from her home gym.
Two Highland Park officers arrived at 5:15; one approached from the front of the house, and the other came from the alley. The latter officer noticed a car start to pull into the alley and then immediately back out. At the same time, a gate to the backyard next door opened for just a second. Suspecting that there was a burglar on the other side of that gate, the officer entered the neighbor’s yard, but he was unable to find anyone. The other officer tried to help with the pursuit, but the rear gate at the burglarized house was locked. Backup and air support were called in from Dallas and University Park.
Once the futile search for suspects was over, officers discovered wires and empty TV mounts in the gym, the garage’s living room, and the garage’s bedroom. They subsequently found three TVs leaning on a fence near the apartment, confirming their suspicion that they’d interrupted an in-progress burglary.
At 10:30 a.m., a resident of the 3800 block of Maplewood found a yellow Trek bicycle and three Hawaiian shirts near his trashcans in the alley. Having received an email from the Department of Public Safety about the burglary in the next block, the resident called police, thinking his discovery may have been related. An officer took the bike and shirts to the burglary victim, but she didn’t recognize them.
Click through for a roundup of other recent crimes in the Park Cities.
• Between 6 p.m. on Aug. 4 and 8 a.m. on Aug. 5, a thief entered a detached garage in the 3300 block of Hanover Street and stole three bicycles – two Treks and a Klein – with a combined value of at least $900.
• Between 9 p.m. on Aug. 4 and 4:30 p.m. on Aug. 5, a thief stole a $100 Mongoose bicycle that was locked to an exterior staircase in the 3400 block of Rosedale Avenue.
• At 9 a.m. on Aug. 6, a resident of the 3500 block of Harvard Avenue discovered that someone had keyed her black 2014 Mercedes Benz ML350. She believes it happened the previous night, because the car had been left in the driveway, which was not her typical practice.
• Between 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. on Aug. 6, a thief stole a $900 Raleigh bicycle from a backyard in the 3400 block of Normandy Avenue.
• Between 7 a.m. and 2:15 p.m. on Aug. 7, a thief stole a wallet from a red 2004 Chevy Tahoe that had been left unlocked in the 3500 block of Centenary Drive. The wallet held $60 in cash, four credit cards, a driver’s license, and a passport.
• Between 9:18 and 9:48 p.m. on Aug. 9, a vandal smashed the rear windshield of a white 2009 Mitsubishi Outlander in the 4100 block of Emerson Avenue.
• At 2:12 p.m. on Aug. 10, a resident of the 4100 block of University Boulevard noticed that someone had entered her detached garage and stolen her $539 Cannondale bicycle after cutting the lock.
• Between 10:40 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Aug. 10, a thief helped himself to $1,000 worth of used doors, shutters, flooring, windows, and hardware that the owners of a house in the 4400 block of Glenwick Lane had intended to resell after a remodel.
