A recent series of daytime burglaries in the Ernie’s Grove area of Snoqualmie has neighbors justifiably concerned. What’s more concerning, it’s nothing new to the King County Sheriff’s Office.

“We’ve got burglaries in the Snoqualmie Valley every day,” said Detective Scott Allen, with Precinct 3 of the Sheriff’s Office, which covers the unincorporated areas of the Valley. “The whole area, we’ve been nailed by a rash of daytime burglaries…. It’s really been a pain in our butts!”

Daytime burglaries are common in the remote, unincorporated areas served by King County law enforcement, Allen said, because there’s “not very many” deputies patrolling the area. Thieves typically scout the areas by car, then target the homes of working people, who are gone for long hours during the day.

After an early-fall lull in activity, Detective Scott Allen said the robberies began increasing in November.

“They’re spending quite a bit of time in these houses, they’re cleaning them out,” he added.

Jewelry and guns are the most-often stolen items. One home-owner also had his vehicle stolen, apparently to transport the items taken from the home. Allen said this is a common tactic for thieves working in teams, and said the stolen truck was recovered near the home later the same day.

Residents of Ernie’s Grove have begun to fight back, the safest and most effective way they can—by starting a neighborhood watch.

“We’re all kind of looking out for each other,” explained Dick Kitz, who’s lived in the area for 30 years, the last 20 in Ernie’s Grove. “If anyone sees something kind of strange, they send out an e-mail to everybody.”

A recent e-mail message alerted people to look for a dark blue Dodge Ram pickup truck with a canopy, believed to have been used in one or more of the November robberies.

The watch was the idea of Kitz’s neighbor, Wanda Neste, who proposed it to a group of residents a few months ago when several homes were broken into.

“She’s really the neighborhood watchdog,” Kitz said.

Every neighborhood needs this kind of watchdog, according to Allen. Budget cuts have severely limited the Sheriff’s Department staff, both in patrolmen and detectives, so they are unable to respond to, or investigate, as many incidents as they have in the past. Only five detectives investigate all criminal activity between Enumclaw and Kenmore, from the Snohomish County line to Interstate-90.

“And we are all swamped,” he added. “People need to protect themselves, they need to have alarms, they need to look out for each other… because patrol is not there to protect these neighborhoods like they used to be.”

Kitz has an alarm system, and his home is at the end of a narrow but very visible driveway. “They’d be pretty brazen to come and want to steal something here,” he said, but he is still worried about what could happen if he or his wife were at home during a break-in.

“These people, whoever they are, they’re probably on drugs and a little weirded out,” he said.

Allen, while unsure of who exactly the thieves were, confirmed Kitz’s drug suspicions, saying “It’s a difficult question, because these groups that are doing it, are basically just heroin addicts.”

They are simply looking for items to sell or trade for more drugs, and are not deliberately going to choose a home with someone inside it, he explained. No injuries have been reported from any of the recent break-ins, and typically, they don’t even cause much damage to a home they are robbing.

Catching a thief while the crime is in-progress is unlikely, so the detectives rely on evidence left behind. Catching a thief without any physical evidence is even more unlikely, again because of budget cuts.

“We don’t get assigned to as many (cases) as we used to. Because of cuts in staff, cases that don’t have any leads,” are given lower priority, Allen said. “If there’s no leads, no fingerprints, no witnesses, no serial numbers on the property… the case just goes straight to records.”

Finding the stolen items is another way to catch the criminals, though. While talking with the Record, Allen was checking out a pawn shop in Everett, looking for items reported stolen from many months-old burglaries.

“We might recover something in a pawn shop, one thing that might lead us to a burglar, or 20 burglaries, but it may take six to nine months,” Allen said.

To contact law enforcement about a crime in progress or any information related to the November burglaries, call 9-1-1, and tell the dispatcher when the call is not an emergency.

The King County Sheriff’s Office webpage is http://www.kingcounty.gov/safety/sheriff.aspx