Dear Editor,
Thought you might be interested in an incident that happened with the sheriffs office.
On the corner of 17th and Ladera in Dolan Springs, close to our place is a two-story unfinished building. It has been empty for many years. A contractor from Las Vegas had started building it and then died. I think his sister owns it.
We had also been told to keep an eye out as thieves were storing stolen stuff inside it and at one time it was completely boarded up, and now several spots are open and the fence is cut.
A few nights ago I heard some yelling and an engine revving, a crashing sound, and a backup alarm from a tractor. I grabbed my gun and went for a drive to see what was going on. I drove by the empty house and there was a truck with a trailer backed up to the garage door, and stuff was being loaded up.
I couldn’t see much because there were headlights pointed at me, but it seemed to be people going in and out of the building to the trailer. I drove by, turned around, and called 911, then went back down the road and parked on the side of the road.
I only had to wait five minutes and here comes a small fork lift driving down 17th St., with a dark blue four-door Dodge Ram truck towing a trailer. It looked like the truck had a dent in the bed on the drivers side, but it was hard to tell in the rain. I turned on my headlights so they would know I was watching, and so I could see better, and I started following them at a distance.
They got down to 17th and Lomila and stopped, so I stopped a ways back. Then they took off a little faster, so I followed, and found the fork lift not running but still turned on, parked 20 feet down Lomila. I had called the sheriffs office a while back and tole them that the truck was driving off, and that I was following. The sheriffs office dispatcher told me not to follow, but I said I would follow until an officer arrived and arrested them.
I noticed there was another vehicle stopped at the corner of 17th and Pierce Ferry, so maybe another person was with them. As the truck and trailer pulled up to turn towards Dolan Springs, the lights came on and it was the sheriff. I stopped and talked more with the 911 dispatcher as I had been on the phone with her since I told her I was following the truck. The sheriff talked to the people in the truck. The truck stayed parked and eventually the sheriff drove up to me.
The sheriff said the story was that a guy named Charlers told the truck occupants to go get building materials from the abandoned house. I told the sheriff how that place was empty for over 10 years and that they were stealing building supplies, and that they abandoned the fork lift. The sheriff took my name and number and said he would handle it. He called me back later and said he had found the forklift and followed tracks back to the building.
Then I saw on Monday that the fork lift that was stolen and abandoned was not on the side of the road anymore. I drove around and found the fork lift parked in the front yard of the abandoned house with the gate still broken open and the house not secured. I decided to look up the owner’s name and contact her to volunteer to help to secure the place as I don’t want thieves in the area.
I called the owner and she has never been notified that anything happened at all. The property owner has not been notified in six days when it took me 10 minutes to look her up and call her! So I stopped at the sheriffs office to get some information and am told there isn’t a report yet and that it could take up to 21 days to finish a report!?! I tried to stay calm, and asked to see someone other than the lady at the front desk, and I know that the property owner had not been notified and I would like to know whether the person I witnessed stealing stuff was arrested or let go. Now I feel possibly endangered that a possible criminal that I turned in wasn’t arrested for a theft I witnessed in the area where I live.
I filled out a form to request a copy of the report. A plainclothes man identifying himself as Deputy Bauer spoke with me briefly. I expressed my discontent with the whole situation, and he never really answered a single question that I had. He just gave me the reporting officer’s name and that the officer would be on duty later in the day. So I went back and forth with Dep. Bauer, getting madder and madder that he wouldn’t answer a single question, like why the property owner was not notified when it only took me 10 minutes to look her up.
Then he tells me to let the homeowner take care of the situation. So I ask, why, as a concerned neighbor in the area that the crime happened and as the person who witnessed and reported the crime and followed the thieves until the sheriff arrived, shouldn’t I be able to get some information.
No answers, so I got so fed up with him that I stated that maybe next time I catch a thief I should just shoot them. He replied that well maybe you should just shoot them, and he closed the door he had been trying to leave through the whole time we were talking.
So is it just me, or even when we do all the work of catching and then following a thief so they won’t get away, the sheriffs office won’t put them in jail? Maybe if more people called and expressed their outrage, something would get done.
Shane Robinson
Dolan Springs
