When Ernesto Cortez’s wife went to the couple’s Whitter porch to get an Amazon package holding Christmas presents earlier this month, she found an open box filled with leftover Jack in the Box food and trash.
From work, Cortez checked his Ring-doorbell video:
A silver Kia Optima pulls into their driveway, a masked female hops out and swaps the boxes.
“We work so hard to buy what we can, and for people to take advantage of other people for their hard work, it sucks,” said Cortez, who works for the Southern California Gas Co. “My wife is traumatized by it.”
He told his neighbors what happened and planned to eventually file a report with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
“I know (law enforcement is) busy,” he said. “I know these guys have bigger and better things to do, but I wanted them to try and make the community aware.”
It is unclear if the number of porch-pirate thefts are climbing or declining this holiday season compared to last year.
Some agencies do not specifically keep track of reported package thefts — the incidents are folded into residential burglaries. And some police officials say there appears to be a lot of stolen packages they never hear about — until they scan social media.
In Riverside, there were 46 such thefts from Sept. 1 to Dec. 1 last year and 31 during the same period in 2021, said Officer Ryan Railsback, a spokesman for Riverside police. But based on the number of home-surveillance videos he sees on Ring, NextDoor and Facebook, the officer isn’t so sure there has been a decline.
“(A victim) could think it’s a $10 or $20 dollar package, so it’s not worth reporting,” Railsback said. “We want people to know why to report it — because we want to get a better picture of the problem with those statistics.”
Railsback himself had a package with energy-drink powder taken from his front doorstep last year on Thanksgiving Day.
“While we were gone, some guy pulled up and walked up and grabbed it and took off,” Railsback said. “I reported it online, because I know the importance of reporting it.”
Anaheim Sgt. Shane Carringer also figures many porch-pirate crimes go unreported, perhaps because people have overall “fatigue” to crime.
“I’m always seeing these posts on NextDoor and Facebook about packages being stolen, but where are the police reports?” Carringer said. “There’s a lot of frustration with certain types of decriminalization of these kinds of (property crimes).”
In 2014, voters passed Proposition 47, changing petty-theft offenses — for stolen property valued below $950 — from felonies to misdemeanors.
Even if thieves are caught, that doesn’t mean the merchandise will end up where it should.
“When people steal these packages, the first thing they do is open the package and take off with the stolen stuff,” Carringer said. “If we have a (suspect’s) car full of stolen merchandise, it might be impossible to determine who the goods belong to.”
Lt. Michele Mahan of the San Bernardino Police Department said the agency has always seen social-media incidents that don’t make it into police reports.
“Sometimes, people don’t feel the value of the item stolen is worth their time to make a police report,” she said.
“Others are not necessarily looking for prosecution, but they do want their money back, so if they are able to get their money back through their bank or credit-card company, then they are satisfied,” the lieutenant said.
Bridgette Schauwecker of Temescal Valley had an Amazon package stolen from her secluded home’s front porch during the daytime in late November. The real estate agent’s home-security camera caught a woman walking up to the home and grabbing a large brown box before driving away.
Five Schauwecker neighbors suffered similar fates.
“You feel so violated,” Schauwecker said. “Like what else can I do? It’s the fear of what else these people are capable of doing.”
She reported the theft to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
To thwart such thieves, the Schauwecker family now will be utilizing Amazon’s In-Garage Delivery service, a free option for Amazon Prime members to have packages delivered inside garages with a wi-fi capable garage-door opener that allows Amazon delivery associates with remote-key-access inside.
Cortez, the Whittier resident, is considering having packages delivered to Amazon lockers that are in stores and fast-food restaurants instead of to his porch.
Carringer recommended coordinating with neighbors if a package will be delivered while you’re not home, and investing in a home-video surveillance system that is properly positioned.
“Video-surveillance systems are so affordable these days, it’s good for everybody to have one to capture evidence that would be useful in a prosecution,” Carringer said. “Make sure it is properly positioned, though, so you’re not catching the top of someone’s forehead.”
Using the reports of porch piracy in Anaheim, police select neighborhoods to plant fake deliveries — a strategy the department began a few years ago. A package equipped with a GPS tracking device is placed on a doorstep. When someone picks up the bait, the GPS system “wakes up” and patrol units are alerted.
On Thursday, good-old-fashion attentiveness helped nab two suspected porch pirates, arrested in Anaheim Hills after a victim grabbed a vehicle’s description.
Hours later, Anaheim police said they found the Honda Passport in the area of Lakeview and Orangethorpe avenues where two 17-year-old boys were found in possession of 15 packages belonging to five victims.
Police said that the packages, in this case, made it back to the rightful owners.
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Porch pirates can be elusive, and so can statistics on how many such thefts occur - LA Daily News
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