Breakin and house stripping thwarted at No. 112 Woodbine Street yesterday a.m.

[AllanY2525]

Folks,

I'm back in Youngstown for almost another month of working on
my properties.  I stopped by the house on Woodbine Street
to look over the work my crew has been doing while I was back
home in MD.  Just as I entered the house through the kitchen door
a beat up, red, late 70's version of a  GMC pickup truck backed into
the driveway of a vacant rental property next to mine and two guys
jumped out, walked right up to the side entrance on the house next door
and entered, went upstairs and began removing contents from the
house.

I know the lady that owns the house next door and called her on
my cell phone to ask if she had workmen coming out to clean, do
repairs, whatever - she didn't - so I called the Y.P.D. and hid
in my own property, looking out the windows and trying to get
a description.  They loaded some very expensive weight lifting
equipment from the house into their pickup, closed the side
door and took off.

I waited for over ten minutes for a cruiser to come, made a report
and they said another car would come back to get more information.
When the second car (car 103) came back with a different officer
in it (shifts had just changed) one of the neighbhors pulled up
and we told him what had just happened.  He took off in his car,
looking for the house strippers and their pickup truck.

As luck would have it, he FOUND them parked in the driveway of
a house on Thornton Avenue, between Elm Street and Florencedale.
By this time, the owner of the house next door had arrived.  We
convinced the officer in car #103 to go to the address on Thornton.
He did, and called for a backup cruiser and when I drove from
Woodbine over to Thornton to see what was going on , the two cops
were stuffing the perpetrators into one of the cruisers to haul
them to jail.

A detective came to the house next door about 30 minutes or so
later and did some forensics in the form of dusting and lifting
fingerprints - the perpertrators had been coming and going
for a couple of days most likely - they put a long aluminum
ladder against the back wall of the house, broke in through
a second floor window and unlocked the side door of the
house, right by the driveway.

When I went in with the land lady and her two kids,
the second and third floor apartments had been
completely and systematically trashed and lots of
stuff missing.  These two thugs had been at it for a
while next door.

We all have GOT to start looking out for our neighbors if we EVER want
our neighborhoods to get better - and then stay that way.  If
you SEE something suspicious - CALL the police IMMEDIATELY
it might actually make a difference.  The breakin yesterday morning
could just have easily been at MY property instead of the neighbor's.

I hope the two thugs that were arrested yesterday do some SERIOUS
time.  If the cops have any brains, they will have searched the entire
house over on Thornton avenue - with a live eye witness to the crime
they shouldn't need a search warrant.

I want to thank Mark Peyko - who thought quickly and acted equally as
fast in locating the pickup truck and the residence of the owner of that
truck.  Mark is both an editor at Metro Monthy and a high ranking
member of the North Side Citizen's Coaliton.  Mark is committed to
the restoration of historic homes and buildings on Youngstown's
North Side - and he has proven it once again.