4 January 2011

Gungahlin IGAs rolled

| johnboy
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This in from ACT Policing:

ACT Policing is seeking witnesses to two attempted burglaries at the Ngunnawal and Nicholls IGA supermarkets overnight.

Around 11.50pm yesterday (Monday, January 3), police received a report of several loud bangs and an alarm being heard at the Ngunnawal IGA. Upon arrival, police located damage to the rear loading bay where unknown offenders had attempted to gain entry to the supermarket.

Police spoke with witnesses at the location who reported they saw a male and female leaving the area in a dark coloured sedan.

A short time later, police were on mobile patrol when they observed damage to the Nicholls IGA on Kelleway Avenue. It appears unknown offenders had attempted to gain entry to the supermarket using a forklift parked near the rear roller door. The offenders knocked down a brick retaining wall before leaving, without gaining entry to the supermarket.

A witness reported to police seeing three persons wearing hooded jumpers leaving the area in a car.

Police are urging anyone who witnessed either attempted burglaries at the IGA supermarkets, or saw a suspicious vehicle in the Gungahlin area early this morning, to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or via the Crime Stoppers website on www.act.crimestoppers.com.au. Information may be provided anonymously.

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WonderfulWorld said :

Wow there are still Neighbourhood Watch newsletters? I’d be interested in what suburbs they still exist, not having seen one since 1995 in Farrer.

I did see them occasionally around Farrer when I was in the suburb in the last two years.

How did they know a forklift was parked nearby? How also did they know they could make that much noise for that long before the cops would arrive? Could they have had inside- connections or maybe a spy surveillance camera …. or maybe they were just lucky?

“Who polices the police’s statistics?”

iono, Coastguard?

JustThinking9:29 pm 05 Jan 11

I’m not sure about the ACT stats but I’d be checking exactly what is meant by stats and how they calculate them.
Some you will find only compare/report actual crimes,,,not attempted/failed crimes.
Others just compare suburb to suburb/state to state/numbers to numbers (not actual attempts)
I guess that’s why they call them stats and not facts..

Who polices the police’s statistics? Maybe burgulars stole them?

WonderfulWorld5:56 pm 05 Jan 11

Wow there are still Neighbourhood Watch newsletters? I’d be interested in what suburbs they still exist, not having seen one since 1995 in Farrer.

@ Erg0: I was under the same impression, but given that I reported the attempted break-in to my garage to the police in September and nothing showed up in the stats for that month, my doubts grew. Body Corporate had an insurance claim for all the damaged garage door locks, so I’d be surprised if mine was the only police report. (Avignon BTW – somewhere between 2nd and 11th Sept as I noticed all the busted locks when I returned to Canberra).

@8: I was under the impression that those stats came straight from ACT Policing, but I obviously don’t have any way to assess their veracity. I haven’t heard much about break-ins in that complex (which is where I live, if we’re talking about the same place), though it does sprawl a bit and I’m probably not in the bit that would be easiest to get into without being seen. I’ll have to ask some of my more “community minded” neighbours what the go is.

I lived on Wanganeen for a while and never had a problem.

“The low burglary numbers in the local Neighbourhood Watch newsletter would suggest otherwise”

That always bemuses me. There was not a mention in that newsletter of the time somewhere during a week in September last year when every second garage in at least one of the buildings in Hopegood Place was broken into, plus there have been close to 10 burglaries of apartments overlooking the park near the Primary school that I know of in the last 12-18 months.

I stopped paying any attention to the newsletter when they filled it full of chain email hoaxes in the guise of security hints one quarter and brushed off my concerns/complaints to them.

Yes, there are good and bad pockets of neighbourhoods in every suburb…

“I’d say that our current location in Garran is worse for burglaries etc.”

The low burglary numbers in the local Neighbourhood Watch newsletter would suggest otherwise – if you exclude Canberra Hospital, that is.

I agree with Helen and m_ratt – having lived in various suburbs in the ACT, Ngunnawal is by far my favourtie safety-wise. Soft targts like IGAs and the such will always attract criminal attention, regardless of where they are located. With the amount of town houses around the Paul Coe shops, you’d hope that someone saw something…assuming they weren’t sick of looking everytime the alarms went off! :p

I’m assuming that since they specifically mention IGA, the Ngunnawal shops in questions are the “Platypus” shops on Paul Coe Crescent, not the shops on Wanganeen Ave where the Video Ezy was located. I believe the supermarket at the Wanganeen shops was a Spar.

I lived across the road from the Wanganeen shops for about a year, with a lovely view of the carpark. We saw many shenanigans in the carpark, although nothing as serious as the shops being broken into. The alarm on the community centre went off quite regularly at 3 or 4am.

Anyway, I always found it a pretty safe area. Safer than my current suburb anyway…

Instead of pointless jibber jabber bagging out areas in the ACT for varying levels of perceived criminal activity. This post would better serve to those who utilise the riot act and may have seen something pertinent to the investigation to be alerted to the Police request for witnesses.

Having lived in a townhouse with an exceptional view of the Ngunnawal Shops carpark, I can tell you that loud bangs, alarms, general misbehaviour and police cars bouncing over kerbs are not uncommon throughout any given night. Strangely we never had a security problem at our place in the 18 months we were there. I’d say that our current location in Garran is worse for burglaries etc.

Captain RAAF7:32 pm 04 Jan 11

oh look, Ngunnawal again!

Get out if you can!!!

Well now that the Ngunnawal Video Ezy is gone, the drug dependant scum need somewhere to get cash. They must not be aware there’s an atm outside the shop. At least they didn’t try it during the day, resulting in staff getting injured.

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