So the ever community conscious Amherst Police Department is holding a citizen outreach event tonight at the Crocker Farm School from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM to educate South Amherst residents about staying safe in their castles.
A serial series of burglary break ins have occurred over the past six weeks in the neighborhood late at night while homeowners are asleep.
Growing up on Amherst's Crow Hill a generation ago, I can't even remember a time when we locked our doors. Of course that was also back when the milkman made deliveries to our front porch. Back before the University of Massachusetts built Southwest High Rise dorms and the phallic Du Bois Library to accommodate a surge of students more than doubling the population of a former farm town.
Note to Perp: if you break in my house under cover of darkness, getting within 50 yards of my sleeping family, I will do everything within my aging powers to rip your heart out and shove it down your throat.
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I concur with Larry's note to the perp. Maybe if the SOB was afraid of what he might encounter when he breaks into a home, he'd think twice before doing it. Bastard.
ReplyDeleteI heard from the Chief this morning and he mentioned that a handful of residents last night wondered what their legal rights were to shoot an intruder.
ReplyDelete(I was always told that as long as you got them on the way in rather than in the back as they were leaving, you were probably okay.)
In that situation, the best outcome would be one where the perp could not give his version of what happened...i.e., deceased.
ReplyDeleteSection 8A Killing or injuring a person unlawfully in a dwelling; defense
ReplyDeleteIn the prosecution of a person who is an occupant of a dwelling charged with killing or injuring one who was unlawfully in said dwelling, it shall be a defense that the occupant was in his dwelling at the time of the offense and that he acted in the reasonable belief that the person unlawfully in said dwelling was about to inflict great bodily injury or death upon said occupant or upon another person lawfully in said dwelling, and that said occupant used reasonable means to defend himself or such other person lawfully in said dwelling. There shall be no duty on said occupant to retreat from such person unlawfully in said dwelling.
http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIV/TitleII/Chapter278/Section8a
ReplyDeleteYes, let's make excuses for the poor misunderstood person. He doesn't know any better, and probably comes from a broken home. I say, let's open our doors, let him in, greet him with open arms...welcome, welcome poor misunderstood person, have at it with all my belongings that I worked hard for, paid taxes on, and probably supported your pathetic excuse of a mom while she sat home and smoked pot in a stupor in front of the TV all day.
ReplyDeleteRead the statute. You can't shoot somebody for stealing your TV. You can only shoot them if they are trying to kill you with it.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 4:56 represents so much of what is wrong with our country.
ReplyDeleteit's terrifying that people like this vote.
I've lived in South Amherst for only 25 years, so I'm something of a new comer. I believe in the law and order of our community. We have a solid police force and they will catch this person/s.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading for more than a year about burglaries in some north amherst neighborhoods so I started locking everything up back then.
I will be keeping an eye out in my neighborhood and use my phone to help get this menace of the streets.
Not sure any of you blowhards could live with the post traumatic stress of killing someone who was trying to steal your ipod. Get a life and keep your guns locked, especially when you're drinking as much as you have been here today.
Cost of cellphone $50. Cost of legal defense for shooting teenager caught stealing it $100,000. Cost of locking your door $0. You do the math.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry: just what are you guys arguing about here?
ReplyDeleteTypical Amherst response to everything "Hide your head in the sand and hope everything gets better". I am going to do whatever it takes to protect my family and belongings. Hide under the bed if you want and watch the misunderstood misfit walk out the door with your stuff if you want, NOT ME!
ReplyDeleteThe Petit family in Connecticut, where the mom and two daughters were murdered...that started out as a burglary/home invasion. Because the burglaries in south Amherst have only been burglaries so far doesn't mean it can't go to the next level.
ReplyDeleteOn any given weekend our police department responds to approximately 300 calls. A vast majority of them coming from tax paying residents dealing with drunken/drugged up college students and the others being gang related who are B&E or selling their drugs in our town. Amherst is going down the toilet, FAST. What should UMASS do about controlling the behavior of their students? Perhaps larger fines for noise, a one strike rule your expelled from UMASS. A limit on # of rental houses in neighborhoods. Think about it when you vote. This is our town and we need to take it back!
ReplyDeleteMy house was burglarized in August while we slept upstairs. One of the police officers who answered the call said an interesting thing after a cursory look at the house. Appropos of nothing, he said, "This wasn't the work of UMass students." I hadn't mentioned UMass, students, or made any comments as to the identity of the burglars. I wondered how he knew this. There are more than 20,000 students at UMass. He could tell by the items stolen and the means of entry (window pried open) that it couldn't have been one of those 20,000? What was his concern?
ReplyDeleteSeptember 21, 2010 12:15 AM
ReplyDeleteCookie anyone?
Lock your doors, lock your windows, lock your cars, keep your children near you at all times. Look more than twice before crossing the street. Don't walk anywhere alone at night. Screen your incoming calls. Sleep with a loaded gun/or knife under your pillow. This is Amherst people! Hear, have a cookie, you look like you could use one.
ReplyDeleteBang, bang, band.....
ReplyDeletewhat a glorious sound it is!
Look, this isn't the UMass students doing this -- it is/are drug addicts stealing for drug money. And the difference (which I am sure the cops know) is that the druggie is stealing stuff that can be quickly sold for profit, which the UM kid wouldn't even know.
ReplyDeleteAnd if your police department wasn't harassing the UM students quite so much, they might have caught this person(s) by now. (And I think it likely is more than one.)
HaHa ED,
ReplyDeleteBoth myself and another poster have had our houses broken into by UMASS kids, you are delusional, a lot of these UMASS "kids" come here addicted to both alcohol and illegal drugs. Why don't you crash a party this weekend and buy yourself some rufee's, Oxycontin, a blunt, and a shot.