Scituate residents are staying on high alert following the alarming number of break-ins and thefts that have been occurring in town. Residents that felt comfortable to leave their doors unlocked and windows open should think twice with the new rise in crime. Scituate may not be the same safe, suburban town that it once was.

    Businesses in North Scituate have experienced several break-ins in the recent past as well. The Surf Shop was successfully broken into two times at the beginning of the year. Senior Brian Mingels said, “we went around back to open up the store when we saw the door knob had been ripped off and the door frame was broken.”

    During the first robbery, the cases that the watches were in were shattered and all of the watches were stolen. On the second robbery, all of the sunglasses were taken out of their cases and stolen as well. However, no money was taken either time, and the security at the shop has been heightened since.

    Senior Danielle McCravy works at the Scituate Pharmacy, which experienced an attempted break-in in early December. Someone tried to break in through the backdoor, by taking off the doorknob, just like the break-in at the Surf Shop around the same time. They were then stopped by the pharmacy’s second door that was locked with a deadbolt. The robbery was unsuccessful, but the technique used in North Scituate break-ins seemed to have a familiar pattern.

    In late January of this year, seniors Jillian Sincoski and Laura Haselman, who work at Wilbur’s North, said that someone attempted to break into the ice cream shop. During the first attempt, someone tried to break in through the back door but only left a dent. A few days later, another attempt occurred when the front window was cracked, after someone tried to smash it in. To prevent future break-ins, Wilbur’s North has installed state of the art cameras to catch the suspect in the act. The police were unable to prove who tried to break into these North Scituate businesses due to a lack of security or evidence.

    Senior Erin Duffey’s house was broken into in May of 2011. A family that always was sure to lock the doors when they left the house was shocked to hear that a neighbor had called the police because of a young man’s suspicious behavior. On busy Old Oaken Bucket Rd., the man ran from the scene into the marsh, where he scattered the stolen items, including jewelry, money and electronics. No prints were found in the house, so no one has been convicted of the crime to date. Following the robbery, the Duffeys installed motion sensor alarms and take all precautions to avoid any more theft.

    Break-ins are not the only type of crime that has been occurring recently on Scituate’s streets. Senior Erin Gerhard’s car was stolen shortly before Christmas vacation. She was staying at her friend’s house that night and noticed that her keys were missing, but figured that she would find them in the morning. At 5:00 a.m., the police called her to say that her car had been found on Hatherly Rd., totaled after hitting a fire hydrant and getting flipped over. The police were not able to identify the thief, but her insurance was able to pay for the rest of the car’s payments.

    Gerhard said that she locks her car “all the time now, even when I’m in my driveway.”

    In a town that used to feel safe and isolated from crime, things have seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. Security systems cannot always prevent robberies, but they can make the act more difficult. Be sure to take the extra precaution and bring Scituate’s crime rate down to what it used to be.