Monday, April 4, 2011

Another DU Neighborhood Crime Wave

Once again the DU/University neighborhood is suffering a crime wave, and local residents need to be on their toes. Denver Police District 3 is holding its monthly neighborhood meeting at 6PM, April 7, at the police station, 1625 S University Blvd. to discuss the situation. Denver police have put out a press release on the outbreak, a copy of which can be found here at KDVR Channel 31/Comcast 13. 

Most of the worst crime that has taken place within the last few weeks involves criminals breaking into cars, then shooting a gun at the car's owners when confronted. So, I would say that if your car alarm goes off in the middle of the night, be circumspect about running out the front door to investigate. Home burglaries are also rampant in the neighborhood, both during the day and at night.

If you want to keep abreast of local crime activity, be sure to consult the City of Denver's Crime Map. When I looked at this map I was shocked to see how many homes have recently been burglarized in the two block radius around our home. Also, we recommend that you be cautious of the Safeway/Morgan's parking lot at night.

Simes
This is all too reminiscent of a couple of years ago, when University neighborhood, serial burglar Tarius Simes, 33,  terrorized the DU neighborhood between October 2008 to September 2009.

Simes orchestrated a string of home break-ins, targeting female victims and waking them in the night with threats of murder. The subject of a huge neighborhood manhunt, Denver Police and K-9 eventually caught up to Simes and flushed him out of a yard on High Street for arrest. Simes is now cooling his heels in prison with a 60 year sentence for his crimes. He's up for parole in 2050. Here's an interesting  DU Clarion blog posting about Simes. Also, in the fall of 2010 there was a similar rash of crime in University Park and District 3 cops arrested five burglary suspects involved in three separate cases.



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