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By Steve Thompson
The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS — The first bang at the door came just after midnight. It woke Kiki Simpson and her husband inside their four-bedroom home near the southern tip of White Rock Lake.
Then came the second bang. They jolted upright in bed.
"They're trying to break in," William Simpson said. "Somebody's getting into the house."
The third bang splintered wood and cracked apart the locks.
"Hey, hey, hey!" Mr. Simpson yelled as he sprang from bed. "What are you doing?"
They were kicking in the front door, presumably to steal jewelry and electronics, even while the home's security alarm sounded. It took Mr. Simpson, gun in hand, to scare away the intruders.
During recent months, burglars have brazenly kicked in doors, cut phone lines and even confronted terrified homeowners in several East Dallas and White Rock neighborhoods. The break-ins are keeping crime watch groups on alert.
"They seem to be bolder than they ever have been," said Judy Whalen, who heads the security program for the Forest Hills neighborhood. "In broad daylight, they'll pull up in your driveway, break in your back door, take a few things, and if you've left your keys on the counter, they'll take your car and drive off with it."
The neighborhood was hit by 37 home burglaries in 2007, which was more than double that of the year before, Ms. Whalen said.
In the Simpsons' subdivision, Highland on the Creek, burglars have kicked in three doors so far this year -- twice during daylight and after cutting phone lines to disable security systems.
"It's very unusual," said the homeowners association's president, Diane Gollhofer Raines. "We've been here 16 years, and this is the first time that this neighborhood has been targeted."
There were 15,095 home burglaries across Dallas in 2007. That's 4.4 percent more than in 2006. But the 2006 total was down 6.1 percent from 2005, according to Dallas police. The numbers do not reveal any convincing trend.
"Right now, overall, we're doing OK, but if you're the victim, then those numbers don't mean a whole lot," said Deputy Chief Jan Easterling, commander of the northeast patrol division.
"They hit different neighborhoods at different times, it seems," she said. "When we start putting pressure in one neighborhood, if we're catching them, that's great. But if we're not, we're pushing them into other neighborhoods."
Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for burglars to kick in front doors. But finding out it happened at a neighbor's house can be frightening news in places not accustomed to such things.
"It's terrible because a burglary leaves you feeling very vulnerable; your house has been violated," Chief Easterling said.
This has been true for residents in Gastonwood/Coronado Hills, just south of Lakewood.
"I've lived in the neighborhood for four years now, and other than occasionally a car that was parked on the street with some items left in it, we've never had any problems," said the neighborhood association's president, Scott Clumpner.
But in December, about 10 break-ins occurred, Mr. Clumpner said. "They'd bust in the front door, take the flat-screen TV and be gone."
He blames the rash in part on new-home construction and rising property values.
"I think it just makes us a little more noticeable to the criminal," he said.
Others blame recent troubles on the release a year ago of more than 700 petty criminals to relieve overcrowding in the county jail. Many had lengthy records for nonviolent offenses.
"They were mostly property crime offenders [theft, burglary, BMV], which made Forest Hills a perfect marketplace," a recent neighborhood watch bulletin said.
"I would definitely say that those people are going to go to neighborhoods where they can commit that crime again," Ms. Whalen said.
Some also wonder if recent break-ins are a symptom of hard times.
"Is the economy taking such a downturn that people are starting to feel a little bit more desperate?" asked Laura Freeland, whose back door in the Swiss Avenue Historic District was kicked in recently while her 6-month-old son and nanny were inside.
Police say severing phone lines shows more sophistication than the average burglar possesses. And when criminals get smarter, so must homeowners.
Burglar alarms with cellular links to a monitoring service have become popular, in part because there is no line to cut. Prices for the cellular devices have plummeted in the last year.
"There was a time when cellular backup was extremely expensive, and only banks and jewelry stores and high-risk applications used it," said Mark Thompson, who owns the North Texas security company Smith Thompson. "Now they've gotten very affordable for residential use."
But security systems don't always stop criminals. It's not uncommon for police to respond to an alarm only to find that burglars have struck and left.
One good place to catch burglars and recover stolen goods is the pawn shop, said Deputy Chief Vincent Golbeck, commander of the central patrol division. "We're always encouraging residents to, please, record all your serial numbers of all your electronics, especially your flat-panel TVs."
Several years ago, Forest Hills and other neighborhoods began deploying another crime-fighting tool. They hire uniformed off-duty Dallas police officers to cruise the streets in patrol cars. Many say these "extended neighborhood patrols" have reduced crime drastically.
"Before 2003, crime was really high," Ms. Whalen said. "Right after we started the program, it plunged almost 50 percent."
Other solutions are even simpler: Make sure windows are fastened, keep bushes trimmed and install motion-sensing lights.
Alleys are a problem for many neighborhoods.
"That's East Dallas' Achilles' heel, because it's access for the bad guys to come and go at their leisure," said Jeff Bryan, a Fort Worth police officer who lives in the Swiss Avenue Historic District and oversees the crime watch program there.
"Don't leave anyplace in the alley where the bad guys can hide," he said. "If you make your alley look clean and like it's being taken care of, it sends a message to them that somebody's paying attention back there."
For all the fear and expense caused by crime, there may be an upside — neighbors find themselves forced to mingle.
Said Ms. Raines: "It looks like the best thing for us is just to get to know each other better, and learn about who belongs here and who doesn't belong here and keep a lookout for each other."

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