Video: Rash of burglaries, home invasions prompt packed town meeting of Haddonfield residents
HADDONFIELD, N.J. - People in a South Jersey suburb say they’re worried about a recent rash of crimes in their normally quiet neighborhood, listing incidents from burglaries to home invasions and even arson.
Haddonfield homeowners stood up, one after another, in a packed citizen-organized meeting, to talk about their individual incidents, sharing among each other from their separate home surveillance videos.
They all talked of loss of property, from cars to wallets, but the most precious item they lost was their sense of security.
"I don’t feel safe in this beautiful town," one woman stated.
Awakened in the night by their home alarms going off, around 5 a.m., finding as many as five burglars going through their house with flashlights, all captured on home surveillance.
Another woman recounted her rude awakening, finding men in her home, saying, "In 42 seconds, they were in. They slowly walked through our house, they went into the garage. They stole my brand-new Range Rover. And then, in the video, you can kind of see that they say, ‘Oh, there’s another car.’ So, then you see them come back into the home."
Residents packed the meeting at a local brewery where they shared numerous home surveillance videos with their fellow neighbors.
'It is really scary': Haddonfield police investigate rash of overnight car, residential burglaries
Haddonfield residents are anxious after reports of burglars trying to break into cars and homes in the middle of the night. Police say it’s happened several times over the last few weeks, with homeowners fast asleep.
In the surveillance videos, men can be seen breaking into a home with a crowbar, or breaking through a front door with two cameras in plain sight. Another video showed burglars holding a device that detects where key fobs are and then stealing cars out of garages and driveways in seconds just before police arrive.
Those who organized the meeting hope to get the same turnout in order to create some kind of neighborhood watch group, while also urging the town’s leaders to get more police or more security for worried residents.