Dec 6, 2008 5:25 pm US/Mountain
Burglars Find Easy Pickings At Calif. Graveyards
RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. (CBS) ―
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In January 2007, there were 10 vehicle burglaries at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, Calif. (File)
CBS 3
Burglars nationwide have found easy pickings at cemeteries, where unattended cars are sitting ducks while the occupants are at gravesides, it was reported Saturday. Graveyards are a heavy target in California especially, reports CBS station KCBS-TV in Los Angeles.
The Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes has had 10 reported vehicle burglaries in the last two years, according to the L.A. Sheriff's Department reports.
The most common tactic was for thieves to either smash a window or enter unlocked cars to swipe the property inside.
Although most of the thieves escape, deputies arrested three males two years ago after they took a purse from an unlocked van on cemetery grounds.
"Their biggest ploy of late is to follow funeral services in with the idea that everybody is going to walk away from their cars and be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour," Ray Frew, Green Hills' president told the Daily Breeze. "They just see it as a golden opportunity because everybody is going to a grave site."
Green Hills is not alone. In January 2007, there were 10 vehicle burglaries at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.
In September, thieves raided the cars of people visiting graves in Memorial Park Cemetery in Skokie, Ill.
In July, police in Pawtucket, R.I., reported three vehicle break-ins at St. Francis Cemetery., and, in June, police in San Antonio reported nine break-ins at San Fernando Cemetery this year,
following 16 in 2007.
A $5,000 reward was posted in Houston in March after more than 30 vehicle burglaries occurred in Harris County cemeteries.
A cemetery in Rancho Palos Verdes thought that a security guard would protect against theft but keeping watch of the 120-acre Green Hills cemetery proved futile given the property's size. The guard was let go about a month ago.
"Unfortunately, we have 120 acres and we have as many as six or seven burials on average a day here," Frew told the Daily Breeze. "It didn't seem to matter how much the person was cruising around."
Instead, the approximately 30 workers conducting maintenance and burial on the grounds are asked to keep watch. When deputies made the arrests in 2006, cemetery employees chased after the culprits and called police.
"It really is sick," Frew told the Daily Breeze. "But (thieves) figure it's a crime of opportunity."
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