Caught on video: thieves in the night outside Wichita homes

About a year and a half ago, Eric Johnsen put a security camera outside his home near Central and Rock.

Since then, Johnsen has been surprised by the number of people walking up to his home in the night who were captured on video.

More and more Wichita residents are installing security cameras outside their homes, Wichita Police Department spokeswoman Sgt. Nikki Woodrow said Wednesday. Police are noticing the trend when they go door to door in neighborhoods as a part of major crime investigations, Woodrow said. At many scenes, it’s common for a couple of neighbors to share surveillance video.

“People are looking out for more than just themselves, which is awesome,” Woodrow said.

Private investigator Emery Goad said he and his colleagues have noticed the proliferation of security cameras when serving court papers. “If we go to a house, it’s unusual if we don’t see a camera.” Goad thinks the growing use stems partly from increased affordability.

And there’s human nature: “One guy buys one, they all buy one,” he said.

Recently, Johnsen and other residents in the neighborhoods between Central and Woodlawn and Central and Rock have been talking on social media about a string of car break-ins and would-be thieves roaming the streets looking for parked cars to target.

But from Jan. 2 to April 27 this year, only six auto break-ins at homes have been reported to police in the area from Douglas north to 13th and Woodlawn east to Rock, said Lt. Paul Duff, with the East Patrol community policing unit. That relatively low number could mean that some people aren’t reporting the crimes, Duff said.

Police want people to report car break-ins, partly because it helps to track crime trends, Woodrow said. Many times, people don’t call because they think police can’t do anything about it, she said.

Here is her advice on how to report it, how to handle it: If you discover a break-in the next morning after the thief is gone, call 911 and the dispatcher will direct you. If an officer can’t come out, one option is to be transferred to what’s called the case desk, where you can report it. Anyone can request an officer to come out, but they might have to wait if there is a higher priority.

If you see a car break-in taking place, “definitely call 911” and stay on the phone, Woodrow said. “By no means go out and confront these people.” At least two officers will respond.

Johnsen recently shared on a neighborhood social media site that “I have noticed more activity in the middle of the night. We have a video camera in the front of the house and I have caught 3 different clips in the middle of the night of people checking our cars.”

In one video, around April 14 or 15, a silver van stopped, then moved on. Johnsen and the neighbor suspect that someone in the van broke out a window in the neighbor’s car.

In a second video earlier this month, a teen rode up on a bicycle around 11:10 p.m. and got into a minivan owned by Johnsen’s wife. Johnsen estimates the teen was 16 or 17. The video showed lights come on in the van. Johnsen was alerted by a motion sensor that signaled to his cellphone.

Johnsen said he picked up a baseball bat but didn’t see anything. He grabbed his wallet, keys and cellphone and called 911 as he was coming out of the house. The thief on the bicycle was riding away down the street and saw Johnsen leaving his house. The thief got away.

On Rock just north of Central, Johnsen, still on the line with 911, noticed a police car that appeared to be on traffic duty. The dispatcher told Johnsen the officer should be able to help him. But when Johnsen pulled up and told the officer what had happened, the officer told him, “I don’t know what to tell you. Good luck with that.”

Moments later, while driving off, Johnsen noticed the teen crossing Central on the bicycle. Johnsen said he followed cautiously.

The teen went into the Dillons store at Central and Rock and was putting change from his pocket into a machine that converts coins to cash. Johnsen suspects that the coins had been grabbed out of cars.

Before he approached the teen, he told a store security guard why he was there. And with the security guard standing by, Johnsen told the teen, “Excuse me.” Johnsen showed him a freeze frame on his cellphone of him on the bike in Johnsen’s driveway. The teen denied being there; he said he lived in a nearby neighborhood and that Johnsen could follow him there.

Johnsen replied, “Look, I never want to see you in my neighborhood again.”

“OK, sir,” the teen said.

“I think I scared the Jesus out of him when I showed him his picture on my phone,” Johnsen recalled Wednesday.

In a third incident, Johnsen’s video showed two people walking up on either side of his pickup in his driveway. One of them had a flashlight. They looked in and walked off.

But it unnerved him to think that at 2 a.m., someone intent on committing a crime came up that close to his house.

“They were 10 feet from my garage door,” Johnsen said. “They were 20 feet from my front door.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2016 at 9:35 AM with the headline "Caught on video: thieves in the night outside Wichita homes."