By Gurneet Samra

Local resident says home was broken into multiple times this year

Nov 28, 2017 | 4:25 PM

Police say there have been 147 residential break-ins so far this year, and that number may continue to rise.

Medicine Hat resident Logan Harris lives in the Flats and is concerned about the frequency of break and enters this year – his home has been broken into three times within a seven month span.

The most recent incident took place on November 25. Harris said he came home from a Christmas party and noticed his dog playing with an unusual piece of wood.

That’s when he checked his back porch door, and saw it had been busted wide open and a window had been smashed.

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Harris added that a deadbolt he installed on the door after the previous time his house had been broken into was also ripped off.

He reported the incident to police. Harris said a forensics unit came by to collect fingerprints off the smashed window and door hinge, but it’s unclear whether any fingerprints were successfully obtained.

Reported residential break-ins have however, not surpassed numbers from last year. Last year between January 1 – November 28th, police say there were 202 residential break and enters.

But property crime has seen a spike. Sgt. Stacey Kesler said it’s a different trend compared to previous years, which typically saw more incidents of violent crime.

“We expected the assaults to go up but they’re actually trending downwards,” said Kesler.

Last week police said opioid use is on the rise across the city, and that may be a factor when it comes to increased theft and property crime numbers. But Kesler said they cannot make a definitive correlation between the two.

“Anecdotally it’s easy to say that we’ve got an opioid crisis and that it’s affecting our crime trends. It’s likely to believe that’s the case, but for us to legitimately tie that is really difficult,” said Kesler.

Harris said the series of break-ins he’s experienced, along with discovering strangers sleeping on his porch, are keeping him up at night.

“I’ve had less sleep, about 4 hours every night. I’ll wake up around midnight and I’ll just stay awake because most of the activity happens in the early hours. It’s very uncomfortable,” said Harris.

Fortunately for Harris, nothing was stolen during the break-ins. But that’s not enough to keep him in the neighborhood – Harris said he is in the process of moving out.

Police advise residents to take preventative measures. Those include installing adequate locks and window bars.

Kesler added that with the holiday season approaching, residents are urged not to leave delivered packages lingering outside, in order to reduce the chances of luring potential intruders to their front doors.