COAL TOWNSHIP - There have been 44 reported burglaries in Coal Township since 2013 began, seven of which occurred this month.
Officers have made 12 arrests in the burglaries, Police Chief William Carpenter said Thursday, and five additional arrests are pending.
Carpenter said there are 23 active burglary cases in all.
Some of the cases have been resolved after the victims refused to press charges, he said. Other reports may eventually be proven false.
When Carpenter began his career with the township police department in 1982, he said, if a burglary occurred, officers knew with whom to begin in seeking suspects. It's not that way anymore. He said there are now many more people who could be involved in such crimes.
"Most of our burglaries are drug related. We can judge drug use by the amount of burglaries and thefts we have," Carpenter said.
That's why it's important to continue to put pressure on drug dealers and users, he said.
"It's a never-ending battle. You can't get discouraged and give up. You have to go after the drug dealers and the drug users" to keep other criminal activity in check, Carpenter said.
Lock up
Carpenter repeated what many local police officers have been saying for years: Residents must lock their cars and their properties.
Across all of Coal Township, there were five reported burglaries in January, four in February, two in March, six each in April and May, four in June, one in July, five in August, two each in September and October.
The reported burglaries do not account for reports of attempted burglaries or criminal trespass incidents.
West-end break-ins
The majority of November's seven reported burglaries occurred in the west end, including on West Spruce Street.
Eric J. Weikel, 33, of 1321 W. Spruce St., Coal Township, is jailed in Northumberland County Prison, Sunbury, on allegations that he stole $13,000 in jewelry from a neighbor's home on Oct. 23. He was arrested Nov. 14 and is suspected in recent break-ins in and around his neighborhood.
The jewelry belonged to the Robatin family. Michael Robatin, of 1354 W. Spruce St., said he was only gone from the home a short while when it was robbed. He figures someone knew his schedule and that he wouldn't be home at that time of day.
"I made a mistake and left the back door open only because I was taking my granddaughter to school," he said Wednesday.
His home hadn't been ransacked and he didn't know anyone had been inside until his son came home and noticed jewelry was missing. Some of it was found and recovered from a local pawn shop. Robatin figures the rest may have been pawned in the Harrisburg area and is likely gone for good, including a watch his son's grandfather wore during combat missions in World War II.
'Feel violated'
George Zalar, of 1223 W. Spruce St., a Coal Township commissioner, said his home was ransacked when it was burglarized Nov. 13. Whomever broke in rummaged through everything - drawers, closets and all.
He wasn't sure if someone picked a lock or if his door was unlocked, but entry wasn't forced, he said. When his 12-year-old son, Blake, got home from school, he found the house a mess and called his parents, who then called police. Electronics and jewelry were missing; an arrest hasn't yet been made.
"At first you feel violated; somebody's inside your house that shouldn't be inside your house. The next thing that happens is you get angry," Zalar said, although he said he and his family are thankful no one was hurt.
"It's just a shame. It seems like it all hinges on a drug problem. The worst part about it is they're preying on hard-working people," Zalar said.
Trust lost
A sister of Mary Lenig, owner of A Touch of Class at 1309 W. Pine St., called her on the weekend of Nov. 9 to tell her the salon's front door was wide open.
"I thought, 'Well, that's crazy,'" Lenig said Thursday.
It looked like it was pried open. The door was "chewed up." She figures the break-in occurred on the night of Nov. 8. The shop isn't open Fridays. A tenant heard noises that night but figured Lenig had stopped in, she said.
She wasn't sure what, exactly, had been stolen. Perhaps some chemicals and hair care product. She lost a day-and-a-half's worth of heat because the door was left open, and had just filled the oil tanks.
A burglary takes more than material possessions, Lenig said. Trust is lost, and money can't buy it back, she said. But she did look on the bright side: Even though the door was open all that time, and people surely had walked past, no one else seemed to have entered.
"If my door was wide open for one day after-the-fact, hats off to the community because anyone could have walked in and taken anything. It's nice to know that no one went in and cleaned me out. We hear all this garbage and it does exist, but that speaks to me as well," Lenig said.
Stealing from a church
A burglary in the 1600 block of West Spruce Street occurred overnight Monday when someone stole thousands of dollars in tools from a renovation project on a home owned by Restoration Ministries Church, Shamokin. Pastor Paul Eby said Wednesday a neighbor's house on Kulp Avenue in the west end had recently been burglarized.
An investigation into both the Lenig break-in and that at the church-owned property is ongoing.
Anyone with information on any burglaries in Coal Township is asked to call police at 570-644-0333.