263-2001 LTC CITY OF MIAMI BEACH
Office of the City Manager
Letter to Commission No.
TO:
From:
Subject:
Mayor David Definer and
Members of the City Commission
Jorge M Gonzalez ~ ~
City Manager
NORTH END APrARTMENT
BURGLARIES
Date: December 6, 2001
This Letter to the Commission is to advise of a burglary problem that occurred in the North
end of the City and how the Police Department identified and resolved it.
In October of this year, the Police Department, through. its crime analysis program,
identified what appeared to be an increase in apartment burglaries in the north end of the
City. The crime analysis information revealed that these crimes had several definite
similarities. These similarities included that all of the crimes occurred along Harding Ave; all
of the apartments had been entered via a violent door kick; all of the crimes occurred
between the times of when school ended to the early evening hours; and only easily
sellable items were being stolen, i.e., cash, jewelry and/or electronics.
In response to this trend, the Police Department established a combined Patrol and
Criminal Investigations Division Task Force that aggressively patrolled the area the crimes
were occurring. In addition, the Police Department informed the community and the
neighborhoods through information via Miami Beach cable access channel, community
meetings and newsletters.
Through this aggressive surveillance and information received from the community, officers
believed that they had observed a burglary in progress on November 13, 2001. When the
officers proceeded to enter the apartment, they discovered this was not a burglary, but
rather an apartment being used to buy and sell narcotics. This resulted in five arrests on
various narcotics charges. Through information obtained from those persons arrasted, and
in conjunction with the on-going investigation, seven suspect's names were developed who
were allegedly responsible for these burglaries. The Police Department has identified five
suspects.
Because of the efforts of the Police Department and the community, burglaries of this type
have been greatly reduced.
The Police Department is to be congratulated for the swift identification and resolution of
F:\POLI\TECHSERV~POLICIES\COM_MEMO\north end burglanJ,ltc.doc