Police put Mililani on alert following recent burglary spike
Burglars going through people's glass louvers have hit 85 homes in Mililani since Nov. 15, according to Honolulu police.
Detectives believe the suspects to be a group of teenagers or young adults who have broken into homes on 50 different streets in lower Mililani and tend to get in by removing glass jalousies from windows in areas that are not in view of neighbors.
"They hit the windows in back of the houses or obscured by bushes," said Burglary Detective Randall Borges. "In 97 percent of the cases, they've taken money and jewelry.
"They go in quickly and they're out, sometimes to hit the next house down the street. We've had four or five burgs a day."
One burglary victim, a 63-year-old man who lives on Pililua Place, said he came home at 10:45 p.m. Saturday and found that burglars had entered through his bedroom window, even though he had glued the louvers to his window's metal clips.
"They took off about seven panes. ... I had them glued with a silicone adhesive, and they broke off the clips," said the victim, who did not want to be identified. "They took some of my wife's jewelry, and they searched the sock drawer, under the bed.
"We look out for everyone in our neighborhood, but it was nighttime and they didn't make noise so I guess no one noticed."
Borges said most of the time the burglaries occur during the day and that usually someone -- a neighbor, most of the time -- does notice something but unfortunately does not do anything about it.
"On several occasions we've had witnesses who said they saw something, a car in the driveway, but they failed to call police," Borges said. "Only afterwards when the officer is there making the report they come to see what happened and then say, 'Oh yeah, I saw something.'"
Borges urges people to call police, and warns those living in older homes in Mililani to watch out.
"They're hitting homes on both sides of Kamehameha Highway but mostly the older homes below the highway," he said. "They're definitely going for the easy targets."