Crime wave of shed break-ins has some calling for protection.
Associated Press
This tiny Somerset County borough was founded in 1774 -- and to hear some of its 428 residents tell it, Stoystown has never experienced a crime spree like the one earlier this month.
Residents are locking their doors, turning on their porch lights and especially wondering whether the borough should bring back the two-man police force that was disbanded earlier this year.
The town had been patrolled only 10 hours a week anyway, but some residents were comforted by even that minimal presence.
So what’s causing all the consternation? A few weekends ago, someone burglarized at least six tool sheds. For a town unaccustomed to crime of any sort, it was major news.
“The only time we lock the door is when we go on vacation -- that’s the truth,” said Vicki Spangler, a 19-year resident of this hillside hamlet about 10 miles north of Somerset, just off U.S. Route 30.
Many residents started taking precautions after the burglaries, which they see as a serious step up from ornery Halloween pranks involving toilet-papered trees -- the only other “crimes” some residents can recall.
“I’m doing some things I didn’t do before, like locking up when I go away,” said Pat Yelovich, a 30-year resident of the borough, whose shed was hit. “Before this, people would go out and not even lock their doors.
“It just seems coincidental that it’s happening now and we don’t have a police department. This is the first time I’ve heard of it in my years living here,” Yelovich said.
The break-ins have prompted some residents to reconsider the need for a local police department -- lost early this year when officials discovered the two-man force hadn’t been certified by the state Municipal Police Officers Education and Training Commission since at least 1997.
Police Chief Ralph Blanset had been purely an administrator and his son-in-law, Calvin Maluchnik, patrolled the town -- usually on Mondays, bingo night at the fire hall -- and whenever else his other job permitted. State police, based 11 miles away, responded to calls when Maluchnik wasn’t on duty.
New Mayor Bill Boyd, and a like-minded majority on borough council, said there’s no reason to resurrect the police force, which had cost about $ 7,000 a year.
Boyd is negotiating with Hooversville, a town about eight miles away, to have one of its officers patrol the borough six or eight hours a week. The mayor said he hopes that option would cost a few hundred dollars less than what the borough paid for its own department.
But he realizes some people “won’t be happy unless we can say, on paper, that we have a police department and they see a police officer a few hours a week.”
David Myers, an associate professor of criminology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, said the perception by small towns that they need their own police is fueled by myth.
“As far as the need for police to be out and about patrolling, there’s not much research evidence that random patrols have an impact on crime,” Myers said. “However, it can provide some psychological comfort if the people see the police out and about.”
Myers said the string of shed burglaries wouldn’t likely have been thwarted by local police, a conclusion supported by Boyd.
“Even if we have a police officer sleeping in his uniform, in his car, and it’s running in his carport, the perpetrator is probably still long gone by the time he’s called,” Boyd said.
There are varying accounts of just how many sheds were burglarized.
State police said six break-ins were reported to them. Boyd said he’s heard of only three break-ins. Council President Patricia Dinsmore said she knows of a half-dozen. And Councilman Amos Snyder, who lost several expensive power tools in one of the burglaries, said he’s heard of at least a dozen residents that lost chain saws and other equipment.
Snyder -- who now padlocks his shed -- doesn’t think having a borough police force would have stopped the crimes, but he doesn’t discount the feelings of those who want some local police presence.
That’s why Snyder supports hiring a part-timer from Hooversville for a fixed amount -- hopefully taking the vagaries of overtime and other unexpected expenses out of the mix -- a proposal that could come up for a vote by December.
“We’re not going to have anything like a full-time force, but we’re going to have enough of a presence that people are going to be at ease, because they’re really kind of scared now,” Snyder said. “But if you want to use a rent-a-cop or whatever it is, I’m all for it.”